Lily's Changes
by arekay
Summary: When Harry is killed by Voldemort in book 7 he wakes up at Kings Cross Station and meets Lily instead of Dumbledore, and she's really angry with him.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

* * *

Avada Kedavra.

Harry saw Voldemort's mouth move and a flash of green light, and everything was gone.

Harry woke up in a bright mist which resolved itself before his eyes into a wide open space which looked remarkably like a much cleaner version of Kings Cross Station. As he got to his feet he saw a beautiful red haired woman charging towards him.

"Harry James Potter. Do you have any idea how angry I am with you?" The next instant he had been swept into a hug and for the first time in his memory he got to experience his mother's embrace.

"Mum?"

"Of all the asinine stupid things you've done in your life, this one really takes the cake. What on earth were you thinking letting him kill you like that?"

Harry was shocked and confused to say the least, on one hand his mother had still not let go off him and on the other she seemed to be really angry with him. He had no idea how to deal with a woman who seemed to be berating and loving him simultaneously.

"But... Dumbledore said I had to die because of the Horcrux in my head" explained Harry.

"Dumbledore said. Dumbledore said. Who cares what Dumbledore said? What on earth has he ever done for you that made you trust him with your life? For that matter why would you trust anything that you got from Snape? Snape, hasn't he made it obvious he hates you, and you already knew from your experiences with Slughorn that memories can be faked."

"But..."

"Okay, quick question Harry. What's a Horcrux?" asked Lily.

"It's part of Voldemorts soul that's he's severed and placed inside an object so that he's immune from death."

"Right and how do you destroy one?"

"Well you've got to use basilisk venom or Gryffindor's sword to destroy the container."

"And you have one in your head right, that's what Dumbledore told you, so why didn't you stab yourself in the head with Gryffindor's sword or a basilisk fang? Wouldn't that have been an equally ridiculous thing to do? What made you think the killing curse would destroy it? The killing curse does not destroy a person's body Harry, nor does it have any effect on your soul, all it does is kill a person painlessly. So why would you believe that the Killing Curse would have any effect on a soul fragment? Your body is still perfectly intact after all. Why would you believe in anything that came out of Dumbledore's mouth?"

"But…"

"But nothing Harry. Think back. When has he ever done anything for you? Have you ever thought about who's been to blame for all the misery in your life? And don't even get me started on how horribly he's ruined my sister's life"

"Ruined her life? What about me. She was horrible to me. She's hated me my entire life. She and Vernon made my life at Privet Drive hell."

"And that's Dumbledore's fault as well."

"WHAT?"

"Think about it Harry. For once just use your brain and stop just believing what people tell you. You have to learn to think for yourself" said Lily.

"What are you talking about Mom? The Dursleys were horrible people, they hated magic. And they hated me" said Harry.

"No they didn't, at least not originally. Sure they were uneasy about magic, but any muggle would be, faced with people who can kill you with a word, control you, make you do anything and make you forget about it with a memory charm, I'd say they had every right to be uncomfortable with magic. She was my sister Harry. She may have been a little jealous of me but she also loved me, there's no way she would have treated you the way she did if Dumbledore hadn't put a compulsion charm on her"

"What? But why would he do that?" asked Harry in shock. His mind was reeling from his mother's revelations.

"He wanted to you weak and easy to manipulate. He wanted you to see him and the wizarding world as your salvation from the horrible muggles. If you'd been brought up in a proper environment with loving parents do you think you'd have had so much faith in him? He wanted a puppet that he could use as a weapon, and let me say he succeeded very well. Just look at your blind loyalty to the man. Have you ever really thought about why you believe in him so much? He's probably been feeding you loyalty potions from the day you stepped into Hogwarts" said Lily.

"He compelled poor Petunia and Vernon to be as nasty as possible to you. This went so against their actual natures that they ended up overcompensating with Dudley and wound up spoiling him rotten. In fact I think he probably had something to do with that as well, just to make you more miserable. No parent in their right mind would spoil a child like that while also abusing another. Didn't you think it odd that they bought him so many presents on his birthday, and gave into all his demands whenever he threw a tantrum? No parent is stupid enough to do that Harry. He dumped you on their doorstep without any warning, he couldn't even be bothered enough to sit down with Petunia and let her know in person that her sister had died. He placed a compulsion charm on them so they would be unable to show you even the slightest bit of affection while also adding an aggression ward to the house so that any muggle living there would act as nasty as possible. As a result my poor sister has been changed into a miserable nasty person. On top of all that he didn't even give them the child support they were entitled to from the Potter trust" said Lily.

"I always assumed he kept my trust fund secret to protect it from the Dursleys" said Harry.

"Yes, I'm sure that's what he led you to believe. The Potter trust was iron clad Harry, there was no way Vernon would have been able to spend a knut of it if you hadn't authorized it. It was absolutely safe until you started handing your keys out willy-nilly to the Weasley family. It's probably been stripped bare by now. After all they weren't planning on you surviving the battle were they, so why wouldn't they steal everything they could?"

"Why would he do that?"

"Why would he do anything he's done over the last 17 years Harry? Isn't it obvious? He's evil."

"Evil! But he's Dumbledore. He defeated Grindlewald, everyone's always looked up to him."

"Well, let's start from the beginning. What did he tell you about the prophecy? I know you think that you and Voldemort were destined to fight and all that rubbish. But don't you think that it wasn't just a bit coincidental that there just happened to be a Death Eater listening in when the prophecy was being said. Don't you think that's pushing coincidence just a little too far? Why would a Death Eater listen in on a school teacher's interview anyway? Don't you think they had better things to do with their time? And why wasn't the interview held at the school like they always are? What did he tell you, that he went to meet her because it was raining or some such rubbish? Why couldn't she have flooed directly to his office? Think Harry think. Put yourself in his place. Dumbledore was leading the war against Voldemort and it was not going well. Then he hears a prophecy that states that the ONLY one that's able to defeat Voldemort is about to be born. What is he going to do? Is he going to wait seventeen eighteen years for the baby to grow up? No. What would be the GREATER GOOD? To let the war drag on for another eighteen years or to try and negate the prophecy by having Voldemort kill a couple of babies? With Dumbledore the ends always justify the means" said Lily.

"He engineered the leak. You never cross checked the date on the prophecy did you? He heard it a month before the so called interview in Hogsmeade. Once he heard it he knew that he wouldn't be the one to defeat Voldemort and the so called savior of the wizarding world couldn't stand the thought of someone else stealing his thunder. He couldn't take the chance that you would grow up to supplant him, nor could he wait for you to grow up, so he tried to have you killed when you were a baby. He couldn't get his own hands dirty of course, no no, that's not the way Albus Dumbledore operates, he always manipulates other people to do his dirty work for him. He knew Snape was a Death Eater. He planted a compulsion in Snape to be there at that time and place, then he imperiused Trewlaney to repeat the prophecy when she did. He's such a master manipulator that he's the one who planted the idea in Sirius head to make Peter the secret keeper. A few well placed comments on how Sirius was obviously the only one that we could trust with the secret, and Sirius came to the conclusion that he was too obvious a choice. He's so good at it that Sirius always thought it was his own idea. He's also the one who convinced your father to hide in Godric's Hollow. The Potters had many properties that would have been much, much more secure for us, we could have left the country for that matter, its not like we needed to work for a living or didn't have the money to go anywhere in the world we wanted to, but unfortunately your father believed in him. I always had my suspicions but your father was so blinded he refused to listen to me, and well, I let myself be influenced by your father's faith as well. Well your father paid for his loyalty with both our lives. Sirius paid for it by spending 12 years in Azkaban followed by living a dog's life and then being trapped in his apartment with that horrible Molly Weasley. Have you thought about the Longbottoms? Isn't it a bit of a coincidence that Death Eaters managed to find the other child that the prophecy could have referred to just a few days after we were betrayed? Dumbledore was responsible for that as well" said Lily. She was on a roll and it didn't seem like she was going to stop anytime soon.

"Think about the rest of your years in Hogwarts. Think about first year, do you really think he didn't know about Quirrel and Voldemort. He placed the philosopher's stone in a school; put hundreds of children at risk. Why? He wanted to entice Voldemort to the school. I don't know if he wanted Voldemort to kill you or whether he just wanted to test if your protection was still active. Even before that, he knew that Petunia wouldn't have told you anything about your heritage thanks to his compulsion charms, did he send a qualified teacher to your house to inform you about the wizarding world like every single muggle born gets? No. He sent Hagrid, a grounds keeper. Don't get me wrong. Hagrid may be a lovely person and a good friend to you over the years, but he was absolutely unqualified to prepare a child for Hogwarts. He didn't even tell you how to get onto the train for gods sake. Right from the beginning you were kept as ignorant as possible" said Lily.

"In your second year what did he do to stop the rumors about you being the heir of Slytherin? Nothing! What did he do to protect you and the rest of the school from a basilisk? Nothing! Children were getting petrified all over the place and the man did nothing. Any halfway competent headmaster would have evacuated the school right after Filch's cat was petrified, but the great Albus Dumbledore didn't seem to care at all, did he? No, he went right on letting children get petrified. They were only muggleborns after all. Who cares about them? That's what he thought" said Lily.

"Think about the Triwizard tournament. Barty Crouch Sr. was imperiused into insisting you had to compete but Dumbledore would have known that since you hadn't put your name in the goblet yourself that you didn't have to compete. Magical contracts just don't work that way. There's no way he would have missed the fact that Moody was a polyjuiced imposter. He still forced you to compete just so he could use you as bait for Voldemort yet again. He didn't even let the rest of the school know that you were being forced to compete. He wanted them to think you cheated your way into the tournament and despise you for it; he wanted you friendless and alone. If it wasn't for the polyjuiced Moody Barty Crouch Jr. helping you in secret you would have died during those tasks. After all, its not like he or any of those incompetents they call teachers could be bothered to help you. They pitted you against a dragon. A DRAGON! and what did you do? You went back the next year and asked for more" said Lily.

"Then after Voldemort's resurrection, why didn't he just force Fudge to view your memories in a pensieve. He was the head of the Wizengamot at the time. Do you really think he was as powerless as he made out? He could have easily called for a hearing and made you testify under Veritaserum as well. No he wanted a weak ineffectual Ministry, so that Voldemort could rise again and he planned on being the one to defeat him when he did."

"In fifth year, did he do anything to protect you from the ministry, did he give any interviews letting people know that he believed in you. No, he let them slander you and paint you as a delusional glory seeking fool. Do you really think he was unaware of Umbridge and her blood quills? He let her torture you, and did nothing about it. The only reason he didn't do something about your little study group is that he didn't expect you to succeed at it at all. He fully expected you to fail and perhaps get expelled from school for it. Then he would swoop in and save you somehow, making you view him as your savior."

"It's only after he got himself cursed by the ring that he started being straight with you, and even then he did nothing to prepare you. Showing someone the equivalent of a bunch of home movies about Voldemort does not prepare them to face a powerful homicidal psychopath. And making Snape the defence teacher at a time when you needed to be trained in defense more than ever. Inexcusable. That man is totally incompetent as a teacher and Dumbledore knows it. Even when he was dying he could not bear the thought of you winning where he had failed so he set you up to die. Did he even tell you how to destroy the horcruxes? No, that was yet another thing you had to puzzle out for yourself. If you really had a horcrux in you then why didn't he do something about it? He had years to research horcruxes and ways of removing them, did he do that? No, he just let you know that the only way for it to be destroyed was for you to be killed, and you - fool that you are, you believed him" said Lily not pulling any punches at all.

"I'm sorry Mum, but what do I do now, I'm dead" said an anguished Harry.

"What do we do now? Now we fix things of course. Why do you think I'm being so hard on you Harry? You think I'd be talking to you like this if we couldn't do something. You are going to listen to your mother and you're going to do what I tell you. By the time I'm done you're going to be healthy, happy, strong and you will never ever let anyone manipulate you ever again. That's what we're going to do."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

"Now I've had the last 16 years to think about this, but until you died and I could meet you there was nothing I could do. I have a plan and we're going to follow it. Our goals are simple. First we're going to make sure that you have a proper upbringing. A happy childhood, with a loving supportive family. Next we're going to make sure that Sirius does not go to Azkaban, We're going to save Alice and Frank Longbottom, destroy Dumbledore, get rid of the pureblood bigots from the ministry and drag the wizarding world kicking and screaming into the 20th century."

"Wait, the only way to do that is if we could go back in time somehow."

"Very good Harry. That's exactly what we're going to do. We're going back in time to the day you were left at the Dursleys"

"Can't we go back earlier and save you and Dad as well?"

"Unfortunately no. As a spirit I'm bound by certain rules. No spirit is allowed to go back and change things so that they didn't die. If that was allowed no-one would ever die of an accident at all. You're a special case since you're not fully dead; you're still anchored to the living world due to your connection with Voldemort. Because of that we're being allowed to tweak the rules a bit and since time doesn't really exist in this place we're going to go back and fix things for you. Now we can't physically change anything in the real world while we're in this state, but luckily for us we won't need to, all we need to do is go back in time, and leave a few messages for Petunia, Sirius and the Longbottoms. That should fix most of the problems in your life."

"We're also going to make sure that you live up to your full potential, and not waste your time with the worst of the Weasleys. Also there's no way in hell you're going to ever end up with Ginny Weasley, you'll be much happier with someone like Hermione, honestly Harry, how could you let Ron steal her away from you. Why on earth couldn't you make your move on her, a smart intelligent girl like that wasting herself on a lazy layabout like that? It's sickening."

"What's wrong with Ginny? I love her?"

"For gods' sake Harry, don't you remember what else happened that year? Remember what happened to Ron when he had that love potion that was meant for you. Girls were trying to slip you love potions and you still didn't find it suspicious when you suddenly developed feelings for a girl you had never thought about in a romantic way at all."

"She slipped me a love potion. Are you sure?"

"Actually I'm not, it's not like I watch you 24/7 you know, there are other things I have to do, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least, your sudden realization that you were attracted to her was much too suspicious."

"So maybe I do have feelings for her, what's wrong with that?"

"Well for one she's a Weasley, that family is wedged way too deep in Dumbledores pockets. Secondly, what on earth do the two of you have in common apart from Quidditch? Any type of romantic relationship needs to be between two equals, and while the girl may be moderately pretty there's no way she's even close to being your equal in any area. And while on the topic of Weasley, why have you stuck with Ron all these years, he's absolutely useless."

"Ok, Ginny and I might not have that much in common but Ron has always been my best friend."

"Really Harry? Even you know he's always been jealous of you. Is someone a real friend if you can't be yourself around them, you couldn't even spend the money we left you without him getting jealous, what kind of person resents their best friend for every little thing? Have you ever thought about why you had so few friends at school? Ron Weasley - that's why. Your meeting him on the train was engineered by Dumbledore and Molly, didn't you think it strange the way she was loudly talking about Platform 9 ¾ when you ran into them at the train station, like she hadn't been there a million times before, that whole meeting was orchestrated, and then he comes in telling you that the rest of the train was full, what utter rubbish. His main job throughout these years has been to make sure that you don't make more friends at school. If it wasn't for him you would have made friends with Hermione and Neville on the train and when Draco Malfoy came by you probably wouldn't have antagonized him so badly. I mean that boy may be a idiot with some horribly warped bigoted ideas, but he was eleven at the time and came by to make friends with you, only for Weaseley to drive him away. If it wasn't for that, while you may never have been friends I'm sure he wouldn't have been so annoying to you for all these years. He tried his best to drive you away from Hermione in first year and then again in third year over that broom, if it wasn't for the troll he would have succeeded and you would never have been friends with Hermione. He's never been loyal to you; he's only been friends with you because Dumbledore made him. Didn't you notice in 4th year, once the rest of the school thought you were a despicable cheater he dropped you thinking his job was done, then had to come crawling back as soon as you did so well on the first task and started getting popular because of that. You even let him ruin your Yule ball. And the way he attacked Hermione over her date with Krum, what kind of person would do their best to ruin a friends evening? The boy is traitorous and disloyal and you shouldn't waste any time on him at all. The only reason he's been chasing Hermione is because he knew that you were so loyal you'd never make a move on her if you thought he was interested as well. And that poor girl, he probably fed her a love potion or two to make her interested in him".

"I don't know what to say, I always thought Ron was my friend"

"Yes, well I can understand that, thanks to Dumbledores interference with the Dursleys, you never had any friends growing up. No wonder you thought that stupid vicious weasel was a friend. Don't worry though, once we're done you'll have tons of friends."

"I can't believe the Ron would do that, Molly's always been the closest thing to a mother to me"

"And that's probably the saddest thing I've heard. So she was nice to you a few times, did you ever look at how she treats other people? Look at how she treated poor Fleur for example. Any decent woman would have gone out of her way to make their son's fiancée feel welcome. Did she do that? No. She let Ginny go around calling her Phlegm, put her down at every opportunity and basically treated her like dirt. The woman seemed to conveniently forget that the girl was an accomplished witch, a Triwizard Champion for Gods sake, not to mention incredibly beautiful. Any woman in her right mind would have been overjoyed for her son. Was she? She constantly belittled and insulted Sirius in his own house even though he was providing a place of refuge for her and her entire family. Which is another thing you should think about, why did Dumbledore insist on the Weasley's staying with Sirius that summer, its not like any Death Eater would have ever bothered targeting the Weasleys, Arthurs too ineffectual to have ever been a threat, Charlie and Bill were out of the country, Percy was firmly in the Ministers pocket, they were in zero danger. No, Dumbledore just wanted them there so that he could prevent you and Sirius from bonding or discussing things in private. That woman's already managed to drive away most of her family. Two of hers sons had to leave the country and they've alienated the third so badly that he ended up virtually disowning them. I feel sorry for Percy really. Molly and the twins just kept putting him down, and for what, because he was ambitious, and wanted to do well at the Ministry."

"He is a bit of a prat though"

"That he may be, but once again you're basing your opinion of him, not so much on your direct dealings with him, but on what you've heard from the twins and Ron. Remember Harry you should never blindly believe in other peoples opinions, you need to form your own from direct observation."

"The twins are all right though"

"Really, so you think that people who can't be bothered to apply themselves in school and waste their time playing stupid practical jokes on others are alright. Tell me Harry, what would they have done if you hadn't given them the money to get started? Nothing, that's what, without you they'd still be living at home sponging off their parents. Those idiots were even testing their products on school children. Testing experimental products on children, my god, to think of all the things that could have gone wrong, its mind boggling how stupid that was. You're far better off staying as far away from all the Weasleys as you can the next time around"

"Even Arthur?"

"Arthur, and what about Arthur makes you think that I'd consider him suitable for my son to be around. He's just another incompetent ministry employee, who's only managed to hang on to his job because he's a pureblood. If they had any kind of merit based system in that place he'd have been slung out on his ear long ago. No the best that can be said of Arthur is that he's a nice person who means well."

"And Hermione? What about her? She's always been like a sister to me"

"And how would you know that? It's not like you had a sister growing up. She's always been your closest female friend, hasn't she? No, subconsciously you suppressed your feelings for her because you thought Ron liked her. And the poor girl probably thought she had no chance with you because you never showed her any interest."

"So you really think I should try and make her my girlfriend."

"Well I certainly approve of her, except for the way she blindly followed Dumbledore, but then she's not the only one to blame there. Is she? But don't think that she's the only one for you just because I like her. Remember Harry I want to make sure that you're capable of making your own choices, if you prefer someone like Luna, go for it, for that matter I'm sure your father would be ecstatic if you manage to date that Fleur girl. If I were you I'd also try to be friendlier with Susan Bones or Daphne Greengrass. You don't need to make any choices now, be friendly with all of them, then when the time is right you'll know whom you want to pursue."

"So if I can't trust the Weasleys or Dumbledore, who does that leave? Sirius, Remus, what about the other teachers like Flitwick or McGonagal? "

"All the teachers at Hogwarts have been too brainwashed by Dumbledore, as such none of them can be trusted fully until he's removed. You can trust Sirius to some extent; never trust him with anything important though as he's proven himself to be too hotheaded. At best I can trust him to be a sort of crazy uncle, the one that's fun to have over for a visit, good for a few laughs etc. Not more than that. As for Remus, I'm not sure, he was a lovely person once upon a time but I'm horribly disappointed in him as well. Considering that he was one of your father's best friends, for him to have never checked up on you after we died is inexcusable."

"He did help me out in third year, taught me how to do the patronus charm"

"Well he was a teacher Harry; it was his job to teach you. Just goes to show how horribly incompetent the rest of the Hogwarts staff have been. For you to think so well of someone just because they were moderately competent at their job really shines a light on how terrible the rest were. No, Unfortunately Remus has also proven himself to be unreliable; hopefully he might do better this time around as he'll still have Sirius's friendship."

"What about Snape, in the memory he showed me, he was your friend."

"'Was' is the operative word Harry, No true friend of mine would have ever treated my son so horribly. The man is unfortunately a horrible excuse for a human being and a terrible teacher to boot. And he never did pay for his crimes as a Death Eater. If we can fix it so that he's sent to Azkaban I would be quite happy. At least that way you'll have a competent instructor and be able to do better in potions."

"So, you said we'll go back in time to when I was dropped off at the Dursley's. Mom, I'm not sure I can go through that again"

"It won't be the same Harry, all we need to do is make a few small changes, get the aggression and compulsion charms reversed, and you'll grow up with a loving family. As spirits we're fairly limited in what we can do, but we should be able to carry that out just fine"

"Still, I'm 17 now; I don't think I can handle being one again"

"Its got to be done son, right now you're an emotionally stunted mess thanks to your upbringing, in the state you're in if I send you back to your current time it'll still take you years of therapy to overcome your childhood and you'll be utterly miserable. But don't worry you won't remember being 17 so it won't feel like you're reliving your childhood. What we're going to do is transfer your memory to your one year old self, but you won't actually be aware of it. We'll charm it so that your memories only become unlocked once you get your Hogwarts letter. You won't need them before that."

"That means I'll still have to go through 7 years of Hogwarts again"

"Yes, but once we get rid of Dumbledore, which I plan to do within the first month of you getting there, you're going to have the Hogwarts experience you should have had, nobody plotting to kill you, no dangerous situations, just school, quidditch, friends and girls like it should have been. Speaking of quidditch though, I'd really prefer it if you didn't join the team till at least 3rd year."

"But I loved quidditch Mom"

"Yes, but Harry there's a reason 1st years aren't allowed to try out, at that age you're just too small and the risk of injury too high, I could have killed McGonagall when she forced you into the team in first year. She didn't even ask you if you wanted to play a school sport, nor did she get permission from your guardians like she was obligated too, no she just dragged you off to Wood and announced that you should be made seeker. It was highly unprofessional of her."

"Also could you please think about becoming a chaser instead, one of the main benefits of sports in school is that they teach you teamwork, but a seeker is just flying around the pitch on his own during the game, you barely interact with the other players at all, if it wasn't for the huge point imbalance that catching the snitch has, it would be the most useless position on the team."

"You know you might be right about that mom, while I love flying sometimes the seeker position did get a bit boring when the snitch took time to show up, I'll definitely try out for chaser next time"

"That's good sweetie."

"OK, but what about Sirius, if we manage to keep him out of Azkaban, wouldn't it be better if I live with him"

"I thought so too, that's why I agreed to make him your Godfather, right up till he let Hagrid take you away and went chasing after Peter. You do realize Hagrid can't do much magic right and there could have been other Death Eaters around that night. The responsible thing for him to have done was to make sure you were safe before he went haring off to kill Peter. No. I want someone who's going to put my child first, and that means Petunia. Also don't forget that Dumbledore wanted Sirius out of the way, if you end up living with Sirius, Dumbledore will keep meddling in your life. I wouldn't be surprised if he tried to kill Sirius to get him out of the way. It'll be safest if he thinks he's succeeded with his plot to keep you downtrodden and miserable"

"What if he checks up on how the Dursleys are treating me?"

"He didn't the first time around, did he? No, the over confident old man will believe in his wards and compulsion charms and probably won't give you another thought until you turn up at Hogwarts. We'll have to make sure Sirius doesn't openly visit you though. For all intents and purposes it has to look like you're being kept isolated from the wizarding world."

"OK, so we leave messages for Petunia, Sirius and the Longbottoms to fix my childhood, but that still leaves Voldemort and Dumbledore. I'm still going to have to fight them aren't I?"

"Actually no, all you need to do is to get rid of Dumbledore. And no, you're not going to have to fight him. Do you think I'm going to let you put yourself in danger again? No, what you're going to do is make an alliance with Quirrel."

"WHAT?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

"WHAT"

"You heard me Harry, Dumbledore's a far greater threat to you than Quirrell ever was; you need to make an alliance with Quirrell so that you can get him to take care of Dumbledore for you."

"But he's possessed by Voldemort, and he tried to kill me."

"Hmm, perhaps we should discuss some of Voldemort's history, you really don't know enough about him you know. After all most of your information about him came from Dumbledore didn't it."

"Yes, but at least on this he couldn't have lied to me, Voldemort is evil, he murdered you and Dad, he's tried to kill me nearly every single year I've been at Hogwarts."

"Yes, he is evil, he has murdered a bunch of people, but what made him that way? No one is born a killer Harry. To truly understand Voldemort you have to know what made him the way he is, and unfortunately a large part of that is also Dumbledore's fault."

"Come on, he murdered Myrtle while he was still in school, murdered his own father as well, no he was always evil."

"Come now Harry, there's a difference between being evil and being insane. Voldemort was insane ever since he made his first Horcrux and that's what drove him to those acts of murder, not because he was simply born evil. Let me start at the beginning. You know some of Voldemort's history, but Dumbledore never really gave you the whole picture."

"OK, so what's the real story then?"

"Well what did Dumbledore tell you about Voldemort's origins, you know he grew up in an orphanage, and after Hogwarts worked for Borgin and Burkes, and at some point applied for the Defense against the dark arts position but was turned down by Dumbledore? Did anything strike you as strange about that? By all accounts he was one of the smartest students at Hogwarts. Why would someone as ambitious and clever as Tom Riddle work in a shop? Why would he apply for a teaching position?"

"Dumbledore said he was using the Borgin job to look for founders artifacts."

"Please Harry, Dumbledore fed you nothing but half truths and lies, he never let you get an inkling of the true story. What you have to remember is that for all intents and purposes Tom Riddle was a muggleborn. While he may have been a half blood in truth, the purebloods would never have seen him as anything but a muggle raised orphan. As you know the ministry has always been heavily biased towards muggleborns, and when Tom Riddle graduated Hogwarts he entered a world where all the doors were closed to him. He couldn't get any sort of meaningful job at the ministry. And the true reason that Dumbledore turned him down for the DADA position was because Dumbledore wanted to hire a pureblood as well. He might have told you some bullshit about not trusting him but the real reason is that Dumbledore is as much a pure blood bigot as anybody. Now during the interview Dumbledore made it absolutely clear that he disliked Tom and also made it clear that he had suspicions about Tom's friends. Now remember, at this point Tom did not really have any Death Eater followers. He simply had friends and people who believed in the same things as him. While he did want power - at that point Tom wanted to push for reforms within the ministry and gain power in a legal way by working towards equality for all wizards, whether pureblood or muggleborn. Unfortunately Dumbledore made it rather obvious that he would work against anything that Tom was doing. This terrified Tom. Dumbledore was an immensely powerful wizard even then, Tom was convinced that Dumbledore would be coming to kill him sooner or later, and this led him to make the biggest mistake of his life - He created a Horcrux."

"He still had to murder someone to do it."

"And you were willing to kill him because he murdered your parents weren't you? We don't know what the situation was Harry, we don't know what drove him to his first act of murder. For all you know it could have been an act of self defense. I believe Tom created his first Horcrux when he murdered his father, and it was after his interview with Dumbledore not during his school years as Dumbledore led you to believe. Perhaps Tom was desperately looking for a way to save himself from Dumbledore and he had already learned about Horcruxes in school. Maybe this led him to an act of murder. Just suppose he had always planned on getting revenge against his father since he might have blamed him for his mother's death. While he may not have intended to kill him before, at this point he decided to take that ultimate step. If you think about it, was he that different from you, didn't you want to kill him for murdering me?"

"You can't seriously believe that mom, how can you excuse away his murdering his father."

"Harry I'm not condoning his actions, but you have to agree that there's a major difference between a serial killer murdering victims at random, and a desperate person wanting to murder the person that in their eyes was responsible for their mothers death and all the subsequent misery in their life. Of course this is speculation on my part, but I don't believe Tom was evil until after he created his first Horcrux."

"OK, but what happened after that. He's murdered so many people after that."

"Ahh, but that's exactly what I was talking about when I said that making a Horcrux was the biggest mistake of his life. You see Harry, the problem is that souls aren't meant to be split, and furthermore Tom put way too much of his soul into the Diary. He didn't just put in a sliver of his soul; he ripped off half his soul and he ended up putting in his humanity and his conscience. The minute he created that first Horcrux Tom Riddle was driven irrevocably insane. Where before, he was simply ambitious, he now became murderous. He no longer simply wanted to be powerful within the ministry; he wanted to destroy the entire wizarding world by pitting pureblood against muggleborn. That's when he created the Lord Voldemort persona and started gaining influence among the purebloods. In his deranged mind he was wreaking revenge on the world that had denied him his due for not being a pureblood and he would use those same purebloods as instruments of his revenge."

"He's still an evil murdering psychopath though."

"Yes but Harry, in the muggle world when an insane person commits a crime, and if they can prove that they're mentally ill, they aren't punished for those crimes. Generally they're sent to a treatment facility instead where Doctors try and cure them with medication and therapy. Unfortunately in the magical world even minor crimes can be punished by stays in Azkaban, where exposure to dementors can drive even normal people insane. In this case don't you think we'd be better off taking our cues from the muggles?"

"So let me get this straight, you want us to cure Voldemort?"

"Yes Harry, a sane Tom Riddle would make a very good ally against Dumbledore."

"Wow, I don't know if that's brilliant or totally insane. Voldemort's been the enemy my entire life and now you want me to team up with him. Still sounds crazy to me."

"Team Up might be too strong a term for what I want you to do. Dumbledore manipulated us to get rid of Voldemort, I feel it only fitting to use Voldemort to rid us of Dumbledore."

"Still, manipulating Voldemort to kill Dumbledore just seems wrong."

"Harry Harry Harry, I never said we're going to kill Dumbledore. No, no, deaths much too good for him. I intend to make him suffer for a very long time."

"You know, you're a lot scarier than I thought you'd be."

"Yes, well getting murdered does tend to give you a different outlook on things."

"I suppose it does at that."

"So, that's the broad strokes of the plan, I'll fill you in on the details on the way, shall we get going?"

"Well I was kind of hoping to see Dad as well."

"Your Dad is busy keeping Dumbledore off our necks, right now he's pretending to be you while Dumbledore spins yet another line of bull."

"Damn, even in death that guy doesn't give up. You've got to give him points for persistence at least. So what's he telling him?"

"Who cares? It's just more of his half truths and lies probably."

"Wait a sec, once we do this and I'm alive again will we still be able to talk?"

"Probably not, we need to use magic to talk to the living and I don't have any."

"What about the resurrection stone, suppose I find that, wouldn't I be able to use it to talk to you and Dad?"

"Harry, that was a children's story, I have no idea if that stone even exists."

"Hold on, I got it from Dumbledore, and it just showed me you, Dad, Sirius and Remus just a little while back."

"Do I even need to say it?"

"Crap, so that was a fake as well."

"Well if you think your parents would be smiling and cheering you on as you head off to commit suicide, then you've taken too many bludgers to the head over the years. Now shall we go and do what needs to be done?"

"Okay, so how do we do this?"

"Well, I'll just need to borrow a bit of your magic, and then we can be on our way, first stop is Godric's Hollow"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

"First stop is Godric's Hollow" said Lily as the world twisted and turned around the two of them till they were standing in front of a small cottage which had seen better days. The front door was smashed in and from what they could see from the garden the inside of the house looked trashed as well. An extremely large man with an astonishing amount of hair was just stepping out the door with a little bundle in his arms.

"Ok, there's Hagrid coming out the door and he's carrying me, so Sirius should be along any second" said Harry.

"Yes, there he is, oh for god's sake he's giving Hagrid his motorcycle, I'd forgotten he did that, I swear that man has no brains at all" grumbled Lily.

"Ok, there goes Hagrid, grab Sirius quickly before he heads after Wormtail" said Harry.

"Stay out of sight while I talk to him Harry, he'll just get confused if he sees you" ordered Lily.

"Ok."

Lily strode up to were Sirius was watching Hagrid disappear off into the distance with a sleeping Harry. "Sirius Black, did you just let Hagrid take Harry away on that flying Death Trap of yours?"

"Lily, you're alive, thank god, I thought Voldemort killed both you and James" said an astonished Sirius.

"Wow, Sirius, does it really look like I'm alive, the slightly hazy transparent look wasn't enough of a give away for you? I'm dead you dumb-ass, and way to go on being a responsible godparent, letting my one year old son get taken away in that ridiculous contraption of yours."

"Wait, what? You're dead?"

"Yes, but lets stay on topic shall we, you were about to explain why you thought it was a good idea for Harry to go flying on a bloody motorcycle" asked an indignant Lily.

"It's perfectly safe I charmed it myself." squeaked Sirius in a panicked tone.

"Oh my god, that means it'll probably drop out of the sky any minute. Tell me Sirius, did you happen to notice the slight size difference between you and Hagrid?"

"Well yes, he is quite a bit bigger but the motorcycle is still perfectly safe."

"And have you ever tested your motorcycle when it's carrying someone who weighs 4 times as much as you? Not to mention the fact that it's a bloody motorcycle Sirius. Who the hell takes a baby on a motorcycle? And why the hell didn't you go with Hagrid? You know he had his wand snapped. Don't you think you should have made sure Harry is safe? You daft git! If I didn't already know that Hagrid managed to reach Dumbledore safely I'd be kicking your ass halfway to the moon by now."

"I'm sorry Lily; I'm not thinking very clearly just now, Voldemort found your house, which means that Peter's betrayed us all. I'm going to kill that dirty rat."

"Yes, yes, why don't you get right on that, don't blame me when you're rotting in Azkaban though."

"Azkaban, why would I be in Azkaban?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because everyone thinks you're our Secret Keeper, so obviously you're the one who'd have betrayed us. Minor little detail like that probably never even occurred to you, you utter incompetent prat."

"I'm so sorry Lily, I should never have suggested Peter as your secret keeper, I'm just as much to blame as he is, it's entirely my fault you and James are dead."

"Stop crying already Sirius, as you can see I'm only mostly dead."

"Mostly dead? What the hell does that mean?"

"You know, its no fun talking to you purebloods, you'll just never get the joke. ** Anyway let's get inside. You need to sit down and make yourself comfortable. This is going to take a while" said Lily.

(** I know that The Princess Bride movie wasn't out at this point, but as several reviewers pointed out - the book was.)

**~o00o~**

* * *

"So what you're saying is Dumbledore set you up?" asked Sirius. He was still having an incredibly difficult time trying to wrap his mind around that concept. Dumbledore could not have betrayed them. He just could not have done something like that.

"Yes."

"And I'm not allowed to go after Peter?"

"No you're not, leave that to the Aurors."

"And I've got to stay away from Harry?"

"Only for the next 5 years or so, by then Dumbledore shouldn't be watching you too closely, and you can start seeing him in secret, I'll also want you to start introducing him to the wizarding world and start teaching him magic around then. It's important that he grows up knowing exactly who he is, but you'll have to do all this in secret. Dumbledore must never know that you're in contact with Harry otherwise he'll try and get you out of the way somehow. He'll have Arabella Figg watching the house and no doubt he'll be monitoring any owls etc. so the usual communication methods are out. Get yourself a phone Sirius, I don't think he'll be able to monitor non-magical means of communication so use only those. "

"Won't Dumbledore wonder why I never try to see Harry? He is my godson after all" asked Sirius.

"Some time in the next few days he'll probably deign to tell you he has Harry in a safe place. Act relieved that you don't have to be the one bringing him up, you're barely into your twenties, and he should find it very easy to believe that you're not ready to bring up a child. Accept his assurances that Harry is safe and make sure you thank him for looking after Harry. You can always pretend that seeing Harry would be just too painful for you as it reminds you of James and me. Oh and never ever meet him alone, I don't trust that man at all, wouldn't surprise me at all if he decided to just erase any and all knowledge of Harry from your memory. Try and restrict all your interactions to owls and make sure you check any letters from him for compulsion charms."

"Okay, but why are we sneaking around Dumbledore? Shouldn't I just go straight to the DMLE and tell them that Dumbledore set you up?"

"And who would believe you? Sirius Black of the House of Black vs. the bloody savior of the light, the oh so wonderful, all knowing bloody Albus Dumbledore."

"Hmmm, I see what you mean, but still we're letting him get away with murder."

"Only for now Sirius, remember that muggle phrase - Revenge is a dish best served cold. And you're going to be very busy for the next 10 years. I need you to take your family's seat in the Wizengamot as soon as possible; I need you to gather as much influence in the Wizengamot as you can. You also need to get close to Amelia Bones, I need her to trust you implicitly."

"By get close do you mean…" said Sirius.

"Oh for gods sake Sirius, get your head out of the gutter, no you're not to get involved with her in that way. You need to be her colleague and friend only. I can't let you mess this up by the two of you sleeping together" said Lily.

"Okay,Okay, and what else do I need to do?" asked Sirius.

"Learn Occlumency. You need to be able to teach Harry and for that you need to be an expert in it. Also wand-less magic is another thing you can teach him, best if he starts learning that first, once you get used to a wand it's a lot harder to pick up. Apart from that you also need to learn how to cast the Imperious. I can't stress how important this is Sirius. You need to perfect the imperious curse."

"It's a one way ticket to Azkaban" muttered a worried Sirius.

"Only if you're caught using it on a human, you know how the ministry regards werewolves, get Remus to let you practice it on him, and once you're sure you've got it, find a giant or two to practice on."

"Giants huh?"

"They're more spell resistant than humans so they're excellent to practice on, plus since the ministry doesn't consider them human it's not illegal."

"Okay" said Sirius.

"You have 10 years Sirius, make good use of them. You have to be ready to move once Harry gets his Hogwarts Letter."

"You can count on me Lily, there's no way I'll ever let you down again."

"For your sake Sirius I hope so. I'm giving you a second chance with Harry, make sure you don't waste it; there had better be no more lapses in judgment like that bloody motorcycle. Oh and needless to say you'd better keep this secret from everyone, that includes Remus, you know he idolizes Dumbledore."

"You're sure about Remus? I think we could probably trust him."

"Like we could trust Peter? No, Remus is way too trusting of Dumbledore, he can't be allowed to get any inkling of the fact that we're against Dumbledore, he'll probably assume you've turned dark and go running straight to Dumbledore. You'll need to come up with a very convincing story if you want his help with the imperious curse, or maybe you should just leave him out of it totally. That might be safer."

"I'll figure something out. Probably better to keep him at arms length like you said. I'll probably just find some giants to practice on."

"Okay then, you'd better get going, go straight to the DMLE and make sure that they're clear that it was Peter who betrayed us."

"Okay Lily, I'll miss you and James more than you'll ever know" as he broke down in tears once again.

"Goodbye Sirius, and you'd better take care of yourself, if I see you on the other side anytime soon I'll make sure you regret it, and that's before I let James loose on you."

"Ha, you really know how to make someone scared of dying don't you." With those last words Sirius apparated away to the ministry to make his report to the DMLE.

Harry came and stood next to his mother "You know, considering that I've watched Sirius battling Death Eaters while hiding from the ministry and dementors, that's still the most frightened I've ever seen him."

"He bloody well should be frightened; idiot man doesn't have the slightest ounce of self preservation in him. You'd better take better care of him this time around Harry; I really hope not to see him on the other side for a long long time."

"I'll try my best Mum; I'll wrap him up in cotton wool and Kevlar if I have to" said Harry.

"Okay, so I know you didn't reach Petunia until tomorrow night, so in the meantime we'll just go and leave a warning with the Longbottom's. No one should be cursed to live like those two were and poor Neville will be so much happier with his parents around."

"Mum, wait a sec; I just thought of something, you know my friend Luna right. Her mother died in an accident when she was around nine. Is there any way we can prevent that?" asked Harry.

"Well I don't see any harm in leaving her a warning. It might not work though Harry, sometimes it's just a person's time to go. Not to mention that the accident is still nearly nine years away, she might not remember any warning I leave her."

"Still, no harm in trying, she was a really good friend to me."

"Yes, she was, I was quite happy to see you ask her out to Slughorn's party. Pity you didn't follow up on that though. She probably would have made you very happy" said Lily.

"Yes, well if circumstances had been different I might have. I got distracted by Malfoy's antics at that party and then somehow the timing was never right was it."

"Well you'll have another chance to be a friend to her, make of it what you will, now lets get going to Alice and Frank's."

**~o00o~**


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

Harry and Lily reached Privet Drive just as Dumbledore and McGonagal were apparating away.

"Look at that, how they could just leave you on the doorstep like that, that tells you everything about what kind of people they are right there." said Lily in a disgusted tone of voice.

"Harry, I'm going to have to go in and wake your aunt up, you'll have to stay out of sight while I talk to her."

"Ok Mum."

Lily walked into the house straight through the closed front door and walked up to her sister's bedroom.

"Petunia, wake up." said Lily.

Petunia woke from a deep sleep, startled to find her sister inside her bedroom.

"Lily, when did you get here?" exclaimed Petunia. "Is everything alright? Why are you here so late?"

"We need to talk Tuney, could you come downstairs, please don't wake Vernon up, I need to talk to you in private."

"Sure Lily" said Petunia as she followed her sister to the living room.

"Tuney, Harry's on the doorstep, could you please get him in."

"Why ever did you leave him out there? He could catch a cold" said Petunia as she hurried to the door and fetched Harry.

"There's a letter tucked in with him, whatever you do, don't read it, best if you burn it right away. Could you do that now please?"

"Lily, why are you acting so strange? Why did you keep this letter with Harry if you wanted it burnt?"

"I'll explain everything, Petunia, could you please just burn that letter right away, it's got a compulsion charm on it."

"A compulsion charm? Why is there…"

"I'll explain everything Tuney, please just destroy that letter first."

"Ok, I'll just toss it in the fireplace, will that do the trick?"

"Yes Tuney, now I really don't know how best to tell you this. This is going to come as a bit of a shock to you, could you please come and sit down; I need to tell you some things."

Half an hour later Lily was still consoling a sobbing Petunia who was clutching onto a sleeping Harry as if her life depended on it.

"How could they just leave him on the doorstep like that, are they insane, it's November, he could have gotten pneumonia, what if a stray animal had come by, he could have been mauled."

"They're wizards Petunia, they tend not to think of things like that, and apart from that as long as Harry survives to face Voldemort again, Dumbledore doesn't really care about his health or the state he's in. In fact he wants Harry to be as weak as possible."

"Why? Why would he do that, what on earth could he have against a baby?"

"He wants Harry to be weak and easy to manipulate, as for the rest Tuney, don't ask me to explain how that mans mind works. It's almost incomprehensible to me as well. Now we need to make sure that you're protected from Dumbledore. The blood protection I invoked on Harry will protect this house from any outside magical attack, but Dumbledore's placed some compulsion wards around the house that have to be negated or you'll never have another moment of peace."

"How do we do that?"

"We need to create a ward to protect your family Tuney, since I can't touch or move anything I'll need your help to create it."

"How do I do that Lily? It's not like I can do magic."

"We're going to use runes Petunia, the thing with Runes is that anyone can draw them, as long as they're created with a magical substance it doesn't matter who drew them."

"But we don't have any magical substances, do we?"

"Sure we do, but I know you're not going to like it."

"What?"

"We'll have to use some of Harry's blood, not much; we just need a few drops."

"What, no, no I refuse, there's no way I'm going to take hurt this little baby, we'll just have to use my blood."

"Unfortunately, Petunia, your blood wouldn't work, only a witch or wizards blood is magical enough to be used to draw runes, and Harry's the only wizard here. It's okay though, all you need to do is prick his finger with a needle, it's no worse than when you take Dudley to the doctors, they've taken blood tests from him right, its no worse than that."

"But those were doctors, what if I mess up and hit a vein or something? I couldn't bear to hurt Harry."

"Tuney, don't worry, I'm right here, I'll guide you through it, I promise you nothing will happen to Harry. Now see if you can find a bottle of ink and a brush, any small paintbrush will do."

Five minutes later Petunia was holding Harry's finger over a small saucer filled with ink; she took a deep breath and pricked the baby's finger allowing several drops of blood to drop into the ink.

"Ok, now clear off a place in the middle of the living room and sit down on the floor, this is going to take some time, what I need you to do is follow my finger exactly with your brush."

With that Lily started tracing shapes onto the living room floor making sure that Petunia followed her directions exactly.

"Once this is done, it'll create a ward that will defend the house and your family from any outside magical influences; you'll be protected from any kind of mental compulsion and memory charm. If we do it right someone could hit you with the imperious curse and it'll slide right off you."

For the next hour Petunia drew a series of intricate runes onto the living room floor, once she completed the last rune the ward activated with a bright splash of light that swiftly expanded to cover the entire house before slowly dimming away into nothingness.

"Wow that was amazing, it's like I could suddenly relax from a tension I didn't even know I was under."

"Yes, that was the aggression wards being pushed back, it's a slow insidious ward, slowly makes you tenser and tenser until you're filled with hate, and all that would have been directed against Harry. And you would never even have realized why you hated your own nephew."

"All because they need to control him, what kind of people did you get yourself mixed up with Lily? That they could do this to us, to him, it's horrendous."

"Yes, Yes it is, but don't worry Petunia, I've got a plan in place to make sure they all get what's coming to them."

"That's good."

"In a few years once Harry is old enough to start learning, I've asked a friend of mine to contact you. You remember Sirius right, James's best man at our wedding. I've asked him to start teaching Harry once he's six years old. Apart from him, don't trust any other wizard you might run across, and if someone called Arabella Figg moves in nearby; make sure that you avoid her as well."

"Ok, but are you sure about Sirius, won't it be much safer to keep Harry away from all that kind of stuff."

"It's necessary Petunia, once he gets older there are many wizards out there who mean to do him harm, he has to be prepared to defend himself."

"Couldn't we hide? We could change our names, move to another country?"

"They'll track him down Petunia, no, for now its best you continue to live here, the protections are in place now and you'll be much safer here. And once Harry is old enough he'll deal with those wizards once and for all."

"I wish he didn't have to." said Petunia.

"I know Petunia, I've got to go soon, could you give me a minute to say goodbye to Harry."

"Sure Lily, I'll just be in the kitchen if you need anything. Call me once you're done."

Once Petunia was out of the room, Harry came out of hiding.

"You know it's really quite freaky to see yourself as a baby. What do we do now?"

"Unfortunately this is goodbye Harry, now we're going to put you back in your younger self. Since we won't be able to speak after that, I want you to know that your father and I love you very much, and we'll always be looking over you."

"I know Mum; I'm going to miss you so much."

"I'll miss you more than you'll ever know Harry, I'm just so glad that I got this chance to talk to you." said a teary eyed Lily as she hugged Harry goodbye.

"Now you need to re-enter your body, it should be simple enough after all that's the place your soul knows is home, you should find yourself drawn into yourself quite easily, then I'll perform the last bit of magic that will lock your memories away till you need them."

"What happens to the soul that's already there?"

"Nothing, it's the same soul after all, in effect all we're actually doing is putting your memories inside your younger self, since the two souls are one and the same they'll just sort of blend together."

"Ok Mum, tell Dad I love him."

Harry walked over to his younger self and looked at the baby, he found himself being pulled forward by an irresistible force into the tiny little body, and for a brief moment found himself looking out at the world through sleepy eyes. Lily came and waved her hands over his head whilst muttering an incantation and then Harry Potter knew no more.

"Goodbye Harry" said Lily as she knelt down and placed a ghostly kiss on the baby's brow.

"I've got to go now Petunia" called out Lily.

"Can't you stay just a little while longer Lily" sobbed Petunia, distraught once again at the thought that she would never see her younger sister again.

"I'm sorry Petunia, I wish I could but I don't have much magic left, give my love to Vernon and Dudley. Please take care of Harry."

"You know I will Lily, I'll love him just as if he was my own."

"Thank you Petunia, I knew I could rely on you." said Lily as she faded away leaving a sobbing Petunia alone with the infant Harry.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Ten Years Later

In a quiet suburban street in Little Whinging a pleasant looking woman was humming happily to herself as she finished preparing breakfast for her family.

"Dudley, Harry get down here now, your breakfast is ready" she called out.

A few minutes later two laughing boys came clattering down the stairs boisterously joking with one another.

"Eat up boys; your father has something he wants to say to you."

"I do?" said a yawning Vernon as he came in to grab his coffee.

"Yes you do, remember" said Petunia as she glared at her husband.

"Oh yeah the Polkiss boy" said Vernon, looking at the two boys who were trying their best to put on their most innocent faces.

"So boys, you want to tell your mother and me how Piers wound up dyed blue from head to toe"

"Haven't the faintest idea" said Dudley.

"Really? Are you sure? So his mother was totally mistaken when she said that you and Harry were to blame?"

"Yep. Total case of mistaken identity." said Harry.

"Boys, Boys, Boys, what am I going to do with you? At least tell me you didn't use magic on him Harry, you know that's against the rules."

"Didn't use magic at all Dad."

"So how did you do it then?"

"Food colori…oops" said Dudley.

"Still want to go with the mistaken identity defense boys? Now how about you tell me what really happened."

"Well…."

"I'm waiting…"

"Okay, see the thing is he was bullying some of the kids and we thought we'd just play a little joke on him. Not like it harmed him any."

"And how did you do it?"

"Food coloring, a bottle of Coke and a Mentos."

"I see, how ingenious" snickered Vernon.

"Ingenious? Is that all you're going to say Vernon? His mother was furious. The poor boy looked like a smurf."

"A smurf…" giggled Vernon before bursting out into peals of laughter.

"I swear you're nearly as bad as the boys" said Petunia.

"You're the one who called him a smurf Pet" choked Vernon still trying to control his laughter.

"Okay but we still need to punish the boys."

"Ground them for a week" suggested Vernon.

"That's not fair, it's my birthday on Tuesday" said Harry.

"Hmmm, how about no video games for a week then?"

"No games, but what will we do then?" wailed Dudley.

"Come on boys, you can't expect to go around turning people blue without any repercussions." said Petunia. "I'd make it two weeks if it wasn't your birthday next week, so consider yourself lucky."

"That's not fair, Piers is a bully, we were only trying to teach him a lesson." whined Harry.

"And now I have to teach you yours. No video games for a week, and that's that."

"Okay Mum" chorused the boys.

"Hmmm, mails here, could you get it Dudley."

"Make Harry get it"

"You've finished breakfast, your brother's still eating, now go get the mail. You finish your breakfast Harry, god knows you're thin enough as it is."

"Now Pet, you know Harry's perfectly healthy, his height's in the 90% percentile for his age."

"He's still too thin though."

"Nonsense, he's perfectly fine, he'll put on some weight once he's done growing vertically is all."

"Hey Harry, there's a letter here for you"

"What is it? A birthday card?"

"Dunno, it's addressed to your bedroom though."

"My bedroom, that's weird" said Harry taking the letter from Dudley.

As he turned the letter over he saw a strangely familiar logo on it back. Suddenly a strange feeling of déjà vu swept through Harry which was followed by a tidal wave of memories. A minute later he had crashed face first into his plate of scrambled eggs.

"Harry" screamed Petunia as she rushed to his side, frantically wiping his face clean.

"Ow.." said Harry, "that felt strange.."

"What happened?"

"The letter, it triggered something."

"This letter? Who is it from?" said Petunia as she started to open it.

"STOP" screamed Harry. "Don't open it. We're not supposed to open it yet."

"What? Why ever not? You're acting very strange Harry. What's wrong with you?"

"Mum, you remember the night I was dropped off? Remember when my other mother showed up?"

"How do you know about that? I never told you about that."

"That's my Hogwarts acceptance letter Mum and well, Mum…that is... Lily, she uh left a little present with me set to go off once I got it, basically it's a complete set of memories of what would have happened if she hadn't interfered that night."

"And…"

"And it was horrible Mum, all of you'll were replaced by these cartoonishly evil versions of yourself. Dad was huge and obese, like an elephant, and so was Dudley, and talk about mean….ugh ugh ugh. And you had this permanent mean angry expression on your face like… like… I don't even know how to describe it; I've never seen you look like that."

"That bad?"

"Worse. And anyway I've got memories of the next few years as well so I know how things are supposed to happen. I think we're going to have to make sure some things happen the same way. That means we've got to keep getting rid of the letters until Hagrid shows up in person to give it to me. Damn Damn Damn."

"Language Harry, what's wrong? "

"Hagrid is supposed to show up the night before my birthday and take me to Diagon Alley on my birthday."

"Bit inconsiderate of him isn't it? You should be with your family on your birthday."

"Mum, don't you get it… We're going to have to cancel my birthday party, this is terrible."

"Can't you just go with Hagrid some other time?"

"No it's vitally important that I be in Diagon Alley on Tuesday, everything depends on it."

"Hold on hold on; Let me think for a sec. Okay, lets do one thing, let's have your party on Saturday instead. We'll just tell everyone that we decided to have it earlier as we wanted to have it on the weekend."

"Thanks Mum, you're the best. Let me see what else, I know I'm forgetting something, Dad can you take Monday off, we need to take a little road trip."

"Why?"

"Well in the alternate set of memories, your evil twin decided to keep me away from Hogwarts so you didn't let me read the letters, but they kept coming so you tried to run away to avoid them, we wound up on some island somewhere."

"Seems a bit extreme, where's this island anyway, how do we get there?"

"No clue, I don't remember how we got there last time, and it was horribly uncomfortable anyway, I was thinking we'll just find a hotel somewhere, or maybe we could go camping. It doesn't matter as long as it's a reasonably far away from here."

"Hmm, Camping could work, could take a couple of days off... Maybe get in some fishing. I'll figure something out."

"Okay what else do I need to do, Sirus, I need to talk to Sirius" yelled Harry as he ran to the phone.

"Come on, come on, pick up already" muttered Harry. "Sirius, we need to talk right now." yelled Harry down the phone as Sirius answered.

"What's up Harry?" said Sirius.

"Okay, remember ten years back, my mother asked you to do some things, did you do them."

"How did you know about …?"

"That's not important right now, I'll fill you in later, just tell me if you did them."

"Yes, Yes I did."

"Great, that's a relief" sighed Harry.

"Ok, so I need you to clear your schedule for the next week, we're going to be going forward with Lily's Plan, I'm going to be in Diagon Alley on Tuesday, before then I need you to do some things."

"Sure, not a problem Harry, you know I'm always available if you need help."

"Great Sirius, now this is what I need you to do….."

* * *

"Ok, Sirius is on board, now we just need to prepare for Hagrid's visit. Dad you think you can get a hold of a fat suit?"

"A fat suit? Why?"

"Yeah, you're right, that'll probably be overkill, you do need to work on your look though. Can you try and look angry?"

"Like this…"

"No, that's terrible…You need to look angry…Angry like someone's beating up Dudley in front of you."

"How about this?"

"Better, but not quite there yet. We'll have to work at it. Dudley, Dudley…"

"What?"

"Can you try and look mean. No not like that, not tough mean, like stupid mean, like a moronic sadist. No no no, that's totally wrong. Crap, this is all going to go to hell, isn't it?"

"Harry, maybe we don't have to act exactly like the evil versions of ourselves right? It's not like any of them have actually met them."

"You're right Mum, but remember those wards Dumbledore set up. They would have turned you into nasty people, so at the very least you're going to have to act a little mean and nasty. The meaner the better. If we don't get it right Dumbledore might start wondering why his wards didn't work, and we can't have that."

"We'll better practice then. So how angry was I supposed to look again?"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

Things had gone pretty much as Harry planned. Hagrid had shown up at the family's campsite, Vernon had put on an act of being an overbearing muggle who didn't want Harry to have anything to do with 'that freakishness'. Dudley was even currently sporting a pigs tail which was something that Harry had hoped to avoid this time around. He knew that Sirius would be able to remove it easily so Dudley wasn't too upset. Actually knowing him he was already using it to freak their mother out thought Harry. Currently he and Hagrid were just finishing up their business at Gringotts. As they stepped outside the bank, Hagrid got a glazed look on his face.

**"Might as well get yer uniform," said Hagrid, nodding toward Madam Malkin's Robes for All Occasions. "Listen, Harry, would yeh mind if I slipped off fer a pick-me-up in the Leaky Cauldron? I hate them Gringotts carts." ***

"Not a problem Hagrid."

"Oh, and could yer hold onto this package for me" said Hagrid as he handed over the small wrapped package they had just retrieved from Gringotts.

"Sure Hagrid."

"Okay, then I'll just come and fetch yeh from Madam Malkin's in a bit, takes a while to get yer robes."

"Okay, see you then Hagrid." said Harry as he walked off towards the tailors. On his way there, he ducked into an alley for a second, and only the most observant of watchers would have seen the small package suddenly disappear from his hand.

The rest of the day went the same as Harry remembered, he ran into Malfoy who was his usual obnoxious self, he got his wand and the whole brother wand gave you that scar shtick from Ollivander, and was gifted Hedwig by Hagrid. As they were leaving Diagon Alley to head back to the train station Hagrid's eyes glazed over again for a brief moment and his pocket suddenly sagged with the weight of the small package.

Hagrid escorted Harry to the train that would take him back to Little Whinging. Harry waited for a few minutes until the station was no longer in sight. He then ducked into an empty compartment and activated the portkey he had been carrying around with him since the weekend. One familiar whirling sensation later he was falling over in the drawing room at #12 Grimauld Place.

"Damn it, what is it with magical travel, do they go out of their way to make it unpleasant or what?"

"Still having troubles with portkeys I see" said Sirius.

"Yep, hate the damn things."

"Your language seems to have gotten a little saltier lately."

"Sorry Sirus, been a little stressed lately."

"I can imagine."

"So, did you get things done?"

"Yep got the items you wanted last week, potions all brewed and I made some gold as well."

"Excellent, how much potion?"

"2 litres."

"Hmm. A standard dose is 50 mils so that's 40 doses. Elixir of Life is not supposed to have much of a shelf life though; did you get the stasis boxes?"

"Yep, got a few, once the lid is closed no time is supposed to pass inside. They're guaranteed to keep things fresh indefinitely."

"Excellent, so we're going to need one dose today, we should keep another 5 in a safe place in your house, somewhere secure where we can get to it quickly in case anyone we know has an accident, let's keep the rest in our vaults at Gringotts. How much gold were you able to create using it?"

"I thought one metric ton was an appropriate amount."

"Great. That should buy us a few friends in the Wizengamot. We should start selling it off slowly in the muggle world."

"Not to the goblins?"

"Nah, the pounds to galleons conversion rate isn't pegged to the price of gold, we'd get a better return if we sell the gold in the non magical world. Careful not to sell too much at one time though, don't want anyone getting suspicious."

"I guess not. By the way you never said how you got the instructions for the potion."

"My mother told me."

"How did she..."

"Remember the night they died, there's not much my mother couldn't do including speaking to you from beyond the grave. Anyway, according to her, there's no keeping secrets from a spirit, she left me the complete set of instructions."

"Lily was amazing."

"That she was. Anyway, are things set up for our meeting?"

"Yep, we'll be having it in the study."

"And the defenses?"

"Put this ring on. It's a portkey, anything happens and you press the stone on the top, it'll take you straight to just outside the wards at Privet Drive. You'll be sitting behind the desk, so he'll have to sit in this chair which is another portkey. Its destination is set to the inside of a furnace at a steel mill. Should be quite unpleasant. The wards are set so that any offensive magic in this room from someone not keyed into the wards will activate the portkey. If you want to set it off manually just tap the handle on the drawer to your right. Now you've got the wandless banishing charm down pat right?"

"Yep."

"Ok, see these dice; they'll be on the desk, just another knick knack right. Nope, they're actually made out of lead. Banish them at him with enough force and they should hit him like bullets. He'll never expect wandless magic from someone your age. If those miss, banish this paperweight, lead covered with steel. Aim for his chest, not his head, heads too easy a target to miss. Remember this is for contingencies only. Your first option is to get the hell out of here using your portkey."

"Right."

"I'll be standing there in the corner covered with an invisibility cloak with my wand trained on him the entire time."

"Is that my Dad's invisibility cloak?"

"Nope that's a Potter family heirloom, I didn't feel right using that, which reminds me, I've got to give it to you before you head to Hogwarts, your Dad would be very disappointed if you didn't use it to play some pranks. I've been keeping it in safekeeping for you ever since I got it back from Dumbledore, and let me tell you, he really didn't want to give it up. I had to threaten him with going to the DMLE and filing a complaint out against him before he gave it up."

"Sirius, you know you're not supposed to antagonize him."

"I know, I know, but there was no way I was letting him hold on to that. As your godfather I have to make sure that you get everything that you're entitled to."

"I know your hearts in the right place Sirius, but you really need to be more careful. Just for a little while longer all right."

"It's been 10 years Harry. Ten years is a long time to wait for revenge."

"Dish best served cold Sirius."

"Yeah yeah yeah. Anyhow, there's one final fail-safe. Once he gets here, the wards will go into complete lockdown. Assuming the portkeys don't work and he gets past me as well, then if he tries to leave the house after that the wards will fry him to a crisp. They're set to maximum lethality."

"Excellent, and we're keyed in so that we can portkey or apparate away right."

"Of course, do you even have to ask?"

"Okay, then I think we're as set as we're going to be. What do we do while we're waiting, going to be another half an hour at least till he flooes in."

"Well, I guess I could show you how to use an invisibility cloak properly."

"What's to know? You just wrap it around you right?"

"Hardly Harry, just because you're invisible doesn't mean that you can't be detected. Okay, quick quiz. How does someone know that you're there?"

"Well, they see you of course?"

"Yeah, but the cloak will take care of that. What else?"

"Sound, if you make a noise they can hear you."

"Yep, So what's the spell to avoid making noise?"

"Uhh, _Silencio_ , no _Mufliato_."

"Nope, _Silencio_ will prevent someone else from speaking, while _Mufliato_ is used to create a baffling noise that will prevent anyone from overhearing a conversation. No, the one you want is _Quietus_. The wand movement is a quick diagonal slash followed by a thrust toward whatever it is that you're silencing. So what do you need to silence?"

"Shoes of course, stop anyone from hearing my footsteps."

"Close but not quite. Apart from footsteps, there are your robes. When you move, your clothes can make a rustling noise if they rub against themselves. Then there's your breathing as well. Breathing can be surprisingly loud in a quiet environment. So you need to silence your shoes, your clothes as well as the cloak itself and finally you need to silence your head so no one can hear you breathing. You should still be able to cast spells though as it doesn't stop you from speaking, just stops anyone else from hearing you. Got that."

"Yep."

"Good, now do you think that's enough?"

"Well, I did until you said that. So what's left?"

"Smell of course. Loads of people have sensitive noses, and that's not even counting werewolves, and don't forget about animals. You know the caretaker at Hogwarts has a cat right? Horrible creature called Mrs. Norris. You want to make sure that she doesn't come sniffing around."

"So what's the spell?"

"_Nidorio Expulius_. Wand movements a quick circle around your head. Dead useful spell this one is. Great for when you're just done exercising or if you haven't had the time to take a shower. Totally eradicates any smell on you. Remember to recast it every once in a while though as it only eradicates the smells that are currently on you. Any odors that you pick up after that will be detectable. It's generally a good idea to use it after a potions class as well, trust me you don't want to go around smelling like Snivellus. There's a reason he's still single and it's not just his horrible personality."

"Got it."

"Give them a go then. Start with _Quietus_."

oo00oo

A little while later the fireplace at Grimauld Place glowed green and a pale nervous looking young man wearing a turban steeped out.

"Ahh Professor Quirrell, I'm so glad you could make it here."

"W-W-Well the note you slipped me at the Leaky Cauldron was most intriguing Mr. P-Potter. What matter did you have to discuss with me?"

"Shall we go to the study then? Might as well make ourselves comfortable."

"L-L-Lead on Mr. P-P-Potter."

Harry lead the way to the study.

"T-T-This is the ancestral house of Black is it not. I-I'm surprised to see you associating with a family that is so notoriously D-Dark. I'm shocked that Professor Dumbledore allowed it."

"Dumbledore has no say in what I do Professor" said Harry as he seated himself and Professor Quirrell in the study.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I asked you here today professor, but it was extremely important that I speak to you before I came to Hogwarts."

"W..Why Mr. Potter. Did you wish to discuss your d-d-defense classes?"

"Not quite Professor. What I actually wanted to discuss with you was something that happened more than a decade earlier. As you know the Dark Lord He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named attacked my family at that time. My parents were killed and then something happened that resulted in he who shall not be named disappearing and me being bestowed with the rather ridiculous moniker of the Boy-Who-Lived."

"I-I don't think there is a single person in the wizarding world who is not aware of those facts Mr. P-P-Potter." stuttered Professor Quirrell.

"Yes, well what most people don't know is that there was a reason that Lord Voldemort attacked my family's house that night. It seems that he was informed that a certain prophecy was made about me and him. I believe the wording was 'The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ...' Lord Voldemort decided that I was the one who the prophecy referred to which led to the events that followed.

"T-T-That is most fascinating Mr Potter, but why did you wish to inform me about the prophecy?"

"I'm getting to that, if I could just have a bit of your patience. You see Professor, what I wanted to discuss with you was the wording of the prophecy. You'll notice it said that I would have the power to vanquish the Dark Lord. It says nothing about whether or not I would have the desire to vanquish him now does it?"

"I-I-I'm not quite sure I understand."

"To be plain and clear Professor, I have no desire to attack or vanquish Lord Voldemort in any way whatsoever. Now that we have cleared that up, I'm about to say something that may incite you to attack me. If you do so; you would me making a big mistake. It would be far more productive of you to hear me out completely. Do you think you could agree to that?"

"W-Why would I wish to attack you Mr. P-Potter, what could you possibly say that would make me want to attack you."

"Well, the real reason that I called you hear today was so I could talk to Lord Voldemort directly, so if you could kindly remove your turban and turn around I would be most grateful."

"H..How did you know?" stuttered Quirrell as he reached for his wand.

"Please Professor, remember what I said, I am very certain that Lord Voldemort will want to hear what I have to say."

"Let me speak to the boy" whispered a sepulchral voice.

"Of course master" said Quirrell as he removed his turban and turned around.

**Where there should have been a back to Quirrell's head, there was a face, the most terrible face Harry had ever seen. It was chalk white with glaring red eyes and slits for nostrils, like a snake. ***

"Ah Lord Voldemort, it's so good to finally make your acquaintance, before we get any further let me just say that I currently hold the solution to all your problems and it would be in your best interest to ensure that I continue to be as healthy as possible. So, no attacking me in any manner. Do you agree?"

"I will hear you out Potter, after that we shall see. I fail to see how you can possibly hold any solution, you are just a boy, one who has probably just bought his first wand."

"And yet I knew that you were possessing Professor Quirrell here, I dare suppose you find that quite curious. As to your problems, I know that you have an incomplete possession of Quirrell and that his body is already failing as we speak. I also know that earlier today you failed to retrieve the stone you sought at Gringotts and that without it Quirrell's body will fail before the year is out."

"If you know all that you must know that the stone has been taken to Hogwarts, I will retrieve it from there, why do I need you?"

"Why go to all that trouble when I have a far simpler solution for your problems?"

"What solution would that be."

"I know how to heal Quirrell's body, I also know how you can complete possession of his body so that you no longer have to live in the back of his head hidden by a turban. In return all I need from you is one simple vow."

"A vow?"

"Yes, an Unbreakable Vow to be precise. You will simply make an Unbreakable Vow to me. The vow will state that neither you, nor Quirrell, or any of your Death Eaters or minions will ever seek to harm or attack in any way me, my family and my friends or their families. In return I will give you the solution to your problems."

"And what is to stop you from attacking me once I have made that vow?"

"Lord Voldemort, I am currently eleven years old. What could I possibly do to harm you? But to ease your worries I will also make an Unbreakable Vow to you. I will vow to never attack you unless I am attacked first by you, Quirrell or one of your Death eaters. Any attack on me or my family and friends will free me to respond in kind."

"I have certain ambitions Potter, what is to stop you from declaring everyone to be your friend?"

"Oh rest assured Lord Voldemort, I am hardly friends with everyone, in fact there is one name that will never appear on my list of friends, that name is Albus Dumbledore. Does that ease your mind?"

"You are not friendly with Dumbledore? I would have thought he would have made certain that you were firmly in his pocket by now."

"Albus Dumbledore is as much my enemy as he is yours. In fact I was hoping to form an alliance with you to bring about his downfall. Should you be interested in such a thing of course?"

"I would be very interested in anything that would harm Dumbledore. But explain to me why you feel the same way. Your parents were his followers after all, why are you not following in their footsteps?"

"Dumbledore believes in that ridiculous prophecy. He believes that as long as I am the one destined to kill you no one else will be able to. Why do you think he allowed the prophecy to leak in the first place? He could not wait for me to grow up, so he attempted to have you do away with me, so that he could be the one to vanquish you. Imagine his surprise when I managed to survive. Once he knows that you have survived he will attempt to pit us against each other until I am dead. I have no desire to be used as an old man's weapon."

"He allowed the prophecy to leak? He attempted to manipulate me?" raged Voldemort.

"Yes, and as such, it is him that I currently blame for the deaths of my parents. Not you. So I see no reason why we cannot work together. Can you?"

"No, provided you are saying the truth of course."

"I am, shall we get to the vows then."

"I believe we shall require a Bonder."

"Yes, would you allow me to call in my godfather? Sirius Black. I believe several of his family members are among your most loyal followers."

"They might have been but he never was. However for this purpose he would be acceptable."

"Fine then, Sirius could you please come in" called out Harry.

Sirius walked to the door, took off his invisibility cloak and pretended to be just entering the room.

"Lord Voldemort, meet Sirius Black. Sirius could you kindly act as our Bonder while we make our vows to each other."

"Of course Harry, if you would join your right hands, yes thats good." Sirius placed the tip oh his wand on their linked hands. "Now go ahead and make your vows."

"I, Lord Voldemort vow to never attack Harry Potter or his family members or any such people that are known to be his friends including the families of his friends in any way unless attacked by them first. I also vow that neither Quirinus Quirrell or any off the people that answer to me such as my Death Eaters will be allowed to attack him, his family or friends." A thin tongue of brilliant flame issued from the wand and wound its way around their hands like a red-hot wire.

"I Harry James Potter vow to never attack Lord Voldemort unless attacked first by him or his followers. Any attack on my family or friends will also be viewed as an attack on me."

Another tongue of flame wrapped around the two joined hands.

"Is that acceptable to both parties" asked Sirius."

"Yes, it is." said both Harry and Voldemort.

"Great, now thats out of the way shall we get to my solution to your problems."

"Do tell" said Voldemort.

"Well, firstly, earlier today Hagrid removed the stone from Gringotts to take it to Hogwarts for safekeeping. Now I'm sure you find the timing of this to be as suspicious as I do. Flamel has kept the stone safe for centuries, why is he no longer capable of keeping it safe? In short Dumbledore already suspects that you have returned. The stone is bait for a trap he's setting up for you at Hogwarts. The good news is that we intercepted the stone after Hagrid retrieved it and used it to create some Elixir of Life."

"How did you do that?"

"Imperious, made him think it was a good idea to have me hold on to the stone for safe keeping, I handed it off to Sirius who brewed the necessary potions while Hagrid and I finished shopping, we then returned it to him and obliviated any memory of him ever handing it to me. Now the Elixir will heal Quirrell's body, but that doesn't solve the problem of you being stuck in the back of his head, and no offense but there is only so much you can do while you are in this state."

"How do you propose to fix that?"

"Lord Voldemort, we know about the Horcruxes as well, we know that you have split your soul multiple times, this is the reason your spirit is currently too weak to complete possession of Quirrell's body. Before we go any further though, I must ask, was Quirrell willing? If not perhaps we should look into other ways of getting you a body."

"Quirinus is loyal to me, he willingly allowed me to take possession of his body."

"Okay then, thats one less thing to worry about. Now as I was saying, your spirit is currently too weak so we need to retrieve the bits of soul that you have left in your horcruxes, this will strengthen your spirit enough that you will be able to complete possession of Quirrell's body."

"My Horcruxes are the only thing keeping me anchored to this plane, I will not allow them to be destroyed."

"You only need one to stay anchored, we know of at least five, the diary, Ravenclaw's diadem, Hufflepuff's cup, Slytherin's locket and the Gaunt ring. What I propose is that you retrieve the soul fragment from the diary and one other. The fragment from the diary should be the largest as it was the first one created, that combined with the fragment from any of the other horcruxes should be enough to strengthen your spirit, while the remaining will be more than enough to serve as safeguards."

"You know far more than I am comfortable with but your solution might be acceptable, we will have to retrieve the Diary from Lucius Malfoy."

"Already done, Sirius put him under the Imperius Curse last week, got him to hand over the diary quite easily. I also have Slytherin's Locket here, that one was easy to retrieve as well since you did ask the Black family elf to help you place it in it's hiding place."

"You have two of my horcruxes?"

"Please calm down Lord Voldemort, we have already taken vows not to harm each other, and I am only attempting to restore you back to your former power."

"Where are the rest of my horcruxes?"

"Right where you left them I'm sure, we only needed two so we only retrieved two. Now as far as I am aware the soul fragments are only liberated once the items are destroyed. Is that true?"

"For anyone else yes, however since I was the one to create them, I can easily remove them from the items."

"That's great, I wasn't looking forward to figuring out a way to destroy them, so do you want to give it a go then?"

"Give it a go? Show some respect Potter, you are talking about items that I had to go to considerable trouble to create, one does not simply reverse years of work just on the say so of an eleven year old boy."

"That would be a eleven year old boy who has already proven to you that he knows what he is talking about" said Sirius. "He has given you a solution to your current predicament, take it or go take your chances with Dumbledore. Perhaps his trap will be easily surmountable. Perhaps he will not be waiting for you. Do you think you can take him on in your current state? If not then this is your only solution. Personally as long as you do not attack Harry I do not care what you do, go on and attack Dumbledore, I'm sure I'll enjoy the show no matter what the outcome."

"Swear on your life and magic that my other horcruxes are safe first."

"Fine, I swear on my life and magic that as far as I am aware, Lord Voldemort's other horcruxes are still wherever he left them" vowed Sirius.

"You too Potter."

"Is this really necessary? Fine. I swear on my life and magic that I have not made any attempt to retrieve the remaining Horcruxes. Is that acceptable?"

"It will have to do for now. Now give me my horcruxes."

"Fine, fine, Heres your Diary and here is the locket" said Harry as he retrieved the two items from a locked chest.

Voldemort looked at the items for a long moment while he decided what to do. Finally he came to a decision and placed his hands around both items whilst whispering an incantation over them. A blackish mist seemed to rise from both items, it hung suspended in the air for a moment before darting straight into Quirrell's head. Quirrell took one long breath, he seemed to be in agony for a moment as Voldemorts features seemed to sink back into his skull before disappearing completely. His eyes flashed red and his face took on a totally different expression.

"Lord Voldemort? Are you okay?" asked Harry.

"Voldemort? Who's that? My name is Tom, Tom Riddle. Where am I?" whispered the person formally known as Quirinus Quirrell.

"Take a minute. It'll come to you" said Harry.

"Come to me? What are you..." said Voldemort before suddenly falling to the ground screaming as the spirit of Tom Riddle became aware of his memories. "Oh my god, what have I done." screamed Voldemort as he thrashed around on the floor.

"Quick Sirius, get the Elixir, his body might go into shock, we need to heal him now."

"Well, I wasn't expecting that" said Sirius as he rushed to retrieve the vial of Elixir he had prepared earlier.

Harry and Sirius forced Quirrell's mouth open and poured in the elixir. Although Quirrell's body immediately began to take on a healthier appearance as the Elixir went to work, throughout this Quirrell kept thrashing and screaming in agony.

"I think we'll need a Calming Draught, or maybe we should just give him a dreamless sleep potion" said Harry.

"What just happened? I thought that restoring his soul fragments would just restore his sanity."

"That's what it did Sirius, and now for the first time in years he's completely aware of all of the atrocities he's committed. Obviously this is causing him a certain amount of anguish. The Elixir will heal his body and hopefully help his mind as well, but we need him to calm down before he does himself an injury. Do you have the potions?"

"I'll send Dobby to fetch them."

"Yeah send Dobby."

"Did master call Dobby?"

"Yes, Dobby could you fetch me some Dreamless Sleep Potion, get me some Calming Draught as well."

"At once Master Black" said Dobby as he popped away.

"I'm glad you managed to get Lucius to free him."

"Didn't free him, house elves don't do well if they're given clothes, they're ostracized by the other elves and most of them end up committing suicide. No, I had Lucius sell him to me for a knut."

"Well, that'll do I suppose as long as you treat him right."

"Of course I will Harry, the way Lucius was treating him was a disgrace to purebloods everywhere. That man is utter filth."

Once they had poured the calming draught down Quirrell's throat, they finally managed to get him to quiet down, they then placed him in bed and put him to sleep using the dreamless sleep potion.

"What do you think? Think he'll be okay?" said Sirius.

"Should be, once he's over the shock. Once he's settled down a bit, we'll fill him in on the rest of the plan. I also need to get him to look at this scar of mine, we need to figure out if it really contains a bit of his soul. Damn thing was throbbing the entire time I was talking to him."

"Yeah, best to take care of that as soon as possible."

"Well, I'm exhausted, will you be okay handling things here?"

"Sure Harry, not a problem, he's going to be asleep for the next 24 hours at least."

"Okay, then I'll just use the portkey to get home and get some rest. Oh and that reminds me, could you just pop over with me, I need you to fix Dudley's tail."

"Dudley's got a tail? How did that happen?"

"Hagrid didn't like the way Dad spoke about Dumbledore, decided to teach him a little lesson."

"What the hell was Hagrid thinking? You can't just go around putting tails on kids."

"Who cares? Let's just get home and fix him up okay?"

"Yeah, okay, I'll do that, let me just hold onto the ring there and activate it."

"Wait a sec, almost forgot Hedwig."

"Yeah, go grab your things and we'll go."

"Oh, and remember to let Kreacher know that you managed to destroy the locket. He'll be much happier once he knows that your brother's last command to him has been completed."

"Anything will be an improvement, Kreacher is the worst elf I've ever come across. Just my luck that my family had to have the craziest elf."

"Trust me, give him a chance and he'll be much better."

"I still can't believe you made him an Unbreakable Vow."

"I did leave myself a loophole. Any of his Death Eaters attack me and I'm free of the oath."

"He'll still have to attack you first."

"Remember Snape? How much you want to bet that he's still nursing a grudge against my father. And considering how much I look like him it'll be ridiculously easy to provoke him to attack me, at least verbally. And a verbal attack is still an attack now isn't it?"

"Very devious, better be careful or the hat will put you in Slytherin."

"In the house that Snape is the head of, the one filled with Junior Death Eaters, like I'll let that happen. Not bloody likely."

oo00oo

*Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

"Harry, Sirius is on the phone for you."

"Coming Mum" yelled Harry as he ran to the phone. "Hi Sirius, what's happening with your guest?"

"I don't know what to do with him Harry. Ever since he woke up he's refused to get out of bed, he's not eating, not talking, just keeps silently staring at the ceiling."

"He's still not snapped out of it huh. Well, I'll come by later today, guess I should talk to him."

"If you think that will help. Come over as soon as you can."

"Yeah, I'll pop over in just a bit" said Harry as he hung up the phone.

"Mum, I need to head over to Sirius's place."

"Have your breakfast first Harry, and no you can't just grab a piece of toast. Sit down and have a proper breakfast."

"Awww Mum, I've got stuff to take care of at Sirius's."

"Whatever it is can wait for you to eat first."

"Okay, Okay, I never said I wasn't going to."

oo00oo

After grabbing a quick breakfast Harry headed to the train station. Due to Sirius's paranoia or basic security precautions as Sirius called it he had never been allowed to portkey directly to his house from Privet Drive. He always had to head to someplace else first. Today he was headed to the train station, where he would buy a ticket despite the fact that he didn't intend to use it. He would then head to the restroom where he would duck into an empty stall and activate his portkey. Hopefully any watchers would assume that he had simply caught a train. While he didn't think that Dumbledore would be monitoring him that closely at this point in time, he felt that it didn't hurt to take some precautions, even if they were a major pain in the ass.

"Sirius I'm here" called out Harry as he materialized in the drawing room at number 12 grimauld place.

"Harry, thank god, I don't know what to do with him, he's been totally unresponsive ever since he woke up."

"That bad huh? Guess I'll have to try to talk him out of it then."

"If you think it'll help, otherwise we're going to have to call in a healer."

"I'd prefer not to do that at this time, what would we tell a healer anyway? Hi, do you have any experience in healing former Dark Lords? That would be quite the awkward conversation."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"By the way, I've been meaning to ask you this all week, but with all the other stuff that's been going on I keep getting sidetracked."

"What?"

"Whatever happened to Pettigrew?"

"Wormtail? He was kissed back in '83. After I testified about his betrayal under Veritaserum the DMLE put out an order for his arrest. They gave out his description along with the description of his animagus form. The ministry was inundated with people bringing in rats for months; finally Arthur Weasley brought him in. He'd spotted him skulking around his garden and he stunned him. Ended up getting an Order of Merlin, Third Class."

"Really? Good for Arthur."

"Yep, I think he got a promotion out of it as well."

"That's cool."

"Uhh Harry, something else I've been meaning to talk to you about."

"What?"

"It's Remus, Remus Lupin, he was best friends with your Dad and me back in the Hogwarts days, and well he's mentioned you several times over the years and I know he's asked Dumbledore about you as well. I think that now since you're going to be reentering the wizarding world, it would really mean a lot to him if you could meet with him."

"You haven't discussed our meetings with him have you?"

"No, your mother made me promise to keep them secret."

"Good, keep them that way. The thing is Sirius; I wouldn't mind meeting him as such, but now's not the right time. Maybe after we've dealt with Dumbledore."

"Yeah, that's probably for the best, it's just hard you know; we were the best of friends at one time."

"Yeah but think about this Sirius. I'm sure he must have met both my Mum and Dad at least once at my parents wedding; he knows that they were my mother's closest relatives. It's not outside the realm of possibility that I would have ended up with them. How hard would it have been for him to look up their phone number? He could have done that anytime during the last ten years but he didn't."

"Actually Harry, everyone assumes that Dumbledores placed you with a wizarding family. Placing a magical child with muggles is practically unheard of. It's just not done."

"Yeah, and yet no one has ever bothered to check up on me, even though for all intents and purposes I disappeared a decade ago. Everyone just trusts Dumbledore even though he had no legal right over me at all."

"Yeah, it's been like that for years, anytime he does something questionable most people just let it slide because he's Albus Dumbledore, he must have his reasons etc. etc."

"Makes me sick, the amount of crap they let that man get away with."

"Well, hopefully that state of affairs will change soon, as long as things go according to plan."

"Yep, well, guess I shouldn't put it off anymore, I'll best go talk to our resident Dark Lord."

"Should I come with you? Just to be safe."

"Nah, the Unbreakable Vow's still in place, I'll be perfectly safe, plus I think he might talk more freely if it's just me."

Harry walked up the stairs to the bedroom that Quirrell had been placed in. He knocked on the door and entered to find the room in darkness, the blinds closed tightly.

"Lord Voldemort" he called softly.

For a long moment there was no sound at all apart from a low hoarse breathing and then - "Do you realize I came up with that name when I was twelve? It's a bloody anagram for god's sake. How did people not realize that I was insane once I started calling myself by that ridiculous appellation?" whispered Quirrell.

"I don't think anyone knew that it was an anagram."

"Not that the name itself wasn't laughably grandiose. Lord Voldemort. Bah."

"What would you prefer to be called?"

"I don't know, am I still Tom or am I Quirinus Quirrell? Who am I now?"

"I don't know. Perhaps you can be anyone you choose to be. The question is - Who would you like to be now?"

"I don't know, Potter, I simply don't know."

"Well, I take it you're no longer interested in being Lord Voldemort?"

"No, and I would take it as a personal favor if you never mentioned that name again."

"And what are your views of your former followers, people like Lucius Malfoy, Nott, Crabbe and Goyle for example"

"I-I don't know, much of my memories don't make sense. Why would anyone have followed me, I was clearly insane. The things I did, the people I killed, why would anyone have followed me?"

"They saw you as their route to power."

"Or maybe they were insane themselves, sane people do not act the way that the Death Eaters did. The things they…we did were monstrous. Monstrous."

"They were purebloods, in their view muggles, muggleborns they're all inferior beings. I don't think they even see them as being human."

"They are the ones who are not truly human. Tell me is it true that most of them are still around? How is it that they were not all incarcerated in Azkaban."

"Some were, the rest had enough money and power to buy themselves out of trouble."

"And the Ministry let them? What kind of people do we have running our world?"

"Politicians."

"Politicians, yes."

"I would like to ask you about something, I was given conflicting information about your early years. Could you clarify some facts for me?"

"What would you like me to clarify?"

"Your first Horcrux? Did you create it by murdering Myrtle while you were in school or did that happen later?"

"I never murdered Myrtle. That was an accident, I had just discovered the Chamber of Secrets and in my youthful pride and arrogance I awakened the Basilisk. Before I could control it fully it got away from me, by the time I caught up with it, its gaze had already killed that poor girl. Once I managed to gain control I immediately sent the basilisk back into hibernation, but I could do nothing for Myrtle to my everlasting regret."

"You then framed Hagrid for the crime?"

"They were going to close the school, I was desperate not to be sent back to the orphanage, and I know I shouldn't have blamed Hagrid for unleashing that animal but when I found him with the acromantula it seemed like a godsend - The answer to my prayers. I told myself that it was the only thing to do; after all once the Acromantula had grown it would have been just as big a threat to the students. I told myself Hagrid should have known better, that even though he had not been responsible for the monster that killed Myrtle, he was still responsible for another monster, so he deserved what he received."

"Then when did you create your first Horcrux?"

"It was after I had left Hogwarts. Every orphan dreams of finding his real parents someday. Dreams that they'll tell him they love him, that they regretted giving him up but they had no choice, I was no different. I had finally tracked my mother's family down and from them I found out who my father was. I went to him, told him who I was. I didn't want much, just a chance to get to know him, but he rejected me. He told me that my mother had ensnared him. That he wanted nothing to do with me. He called my mother a tramp, I was furious, I could not control my anger and then..."

"You killed him."

"I didn't mean to. I only meant to punch him, I hit him, hit him as hard as I could, he fell. Fell and hit his head against a table. The next thing I knew he had stopped breathing."

"And then..."

"I was terrified, Dumbledore had already made clear his dislike of me, he didn't like the fact that I had been protesting against the Ministry's anti-muggleborn policies. I knew that if the case went to trial he would push for me to be given the kiss. To be fed to the dementors."

"What did you do then?"

"In the course of my studies I had come across Horcruxes. I knew that they were the darkest magic that there was, but in my panic and fear I felt that I didn't have any other choice but to use my father's death to create one. How else could I save myself from Dumbledore? All I was carrying with me at the time was my wand and an old school diary, and so..."

"You used the diary to create your first horcrux."

"Yes. Post that point none of my memories make sense, they seem like someone else's memories, yet I know it was me doing those actions. How can I live with those actions Potter? How? How do I live with all the blood on my hands?"

"Well, wasting away in a darkened room, isn't the answer, I know that much."

"And yet, I don't know what else I can do? What reason do I have to go on living?"

"You have a chance to make amends. To set right the wrongs you once did."

"How do I do that? What could I possibly do at this point?"

"I have a little plan. A plan that would be considerably more difficult if I do not have your help to carry it out."

"Tell me about it."

"I fully intend to, but first could I trouble you to look at this scar. It's the remnant of the killing curse you hit me with and for some reason it reacts whenever I'm close to you. Even now it is throbbing quite painfully."

"Why should that happen? You received that scar a decade ago; any pain should have long disappeared."

"I don't fully understand it myself, there is a theory that due to your creation of multiple horcruxes your soul was unstable enough that a fragment of it detached the night you attacked me, and created an accidental horcrux out of me."

"An accidental horcrux? How ridiculous, a very specific ritual has to be done to create a horcrux. There is no such thing as an accidental horcrux. Whoever came up with that theory clearly has no idea what they are talking about."

"Yet my scar gives me pain only when we are close to each other."

"True, but then it could simply be a side effect of the killing curse. After all you are the only known survivor of the curse, who knows what effect it had on you?"

"I am also a parselmouth much like yourself; the same person who came up with the accidental horcrux theory also theorized that you somehow managed to transfer that ability to me when your curse rebounded that night."

"You are a parselmouth as well. That is quite the coincidence; it is a very rare ability."

"Tell me about it..."

"Perhaps I should have a closer look at your scar. Could you please come closer and sit by the bed."

Quirrell lifted himself from the bed and waved his wand over Harry's forehead.

"Strange, quite strange, clearly you are not a horcrux, there is no known way you could be, yet there is a remnant of my magical signature still residing within your scar."

"What do you think it is then?"

"Frankly at this point I have no idea, but perhaps..."

"Yes?"

"Perhaps...Tell me Potter have you read up much on the theory of magic."

"A bit."

"Do you know what actually happens when you cast a spell."

"A spell is simply a way to make magic do what you want it to do."

"Simplistic, but true. Spells are simply one way of performing magic, they are stylized rituals that we learn in order to perform various tasks, but in its rawest most elemental form what we call a spell is simply the expression of our will over magic. Magic exists within all living being, in every fiber, every cell of our bodies, the only difference between wizards and muggles is that for some unknown reason more magic exists within us. When we perform a spell we are forcing the magic out of our bodies through our will. Our will expels the magic from within us, it makes the magic perform a specific action before allowing it to withdraw back into our bodies. Some theorize that we are also expelling our will as well, we forcefully project our will out into the world to shape our magic and make it obey us. A killing curse requires a large amount of power. The caster forces magic to do what is anathema to the basic nature of magic. It forces it to kill. Thus the amount of magic and will expelled from the casters body is obviously rather large. Now when the spell is finished the will and magic return to the casters body, but when I cast the spell on you, it was never completed, and the backlash of the disrupted spell destroyed my body as well. Perhaps the remnant I sense within your scar is simply the remains of the will and magic that I threw at you. Since my body was destroyed it could not return to me, neither could it dissipate due to the fact that my horcruxes anchored my spirit to this world. It causes you pain whenever we are near because the fragments of magic and will recognize their creator and the spell cries out for completion. Since it also contains the essence of my will I would not be surprised that it gave you some of my abilities as well. On the other hand Parseltongue while rare does occasionally crop up here and there."

"So you're saying that the scar will continue to trouble me until I die?"

"Perhaps, Perhaps not",Quirrell cocked his head quizzically. "I wonder, if my will exists as a separate entity outside my body in such a way, would it be possible for me to use it to communicate with you or it in some fashion? It should theoretically create some sort of link between us."

"I'd rather you not experiment with it. It does cause me a load of pain when we are near each other after all."

"Of course Mr. Potter, I wouldn't dream of doing anything to cause you any discomfort. Apart from the vow I swore to not attack you, I am also fully aware of the debt I owe you."

"Debt?"

"You returned me my sanity. Truth be told at this point I don't know whether to thank you or curse you, but on the whole despite the pain, I think I would rather have my sanity. I must look into this further. Rest assured Potter I will not rest until I have found a solution to your dilemma."

"Thank you Professor Quirrell or would you prefer Mr. Riddle?"

"I think after all, that I would prefer to be known as Quirrell. At least for the time being."

"All right then Professor Quirrell, perhaps you should get out of bed and get something to eat then. After all you wouldn't be of much help to me if you waste away in your room."

oo00oo

Harry walked back down to the drawing room to find Sirius pacing furiously.

"At last, what happened, is he any better?"

"I managed to get him out of bed at least, Dobby's helping him into the bath right now."

"Some progress at least. What happened? Why do you look so angry, did he do anything."

"Hmmm, no, it wasn't him, I just confirmed that something that I once allowed somebody to convince me off was in fact an utter load of steaming hippogriff crap, and while I knew it was most likely a lie, hearing it confirmed just pissed the hell out of me all over again."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'll explain some other time Sirius, really don't feel like going over it right now."

"Okay then, I'm here for you whenever you need me, you know that."

"I know Sirius, thank you."

"Do you think he'll be capable of doing what we need him to do."

"I think so."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

The remaining days left before school started were among the most exhausting in Harry's life. Sirius insisted on drilling him mercilessly in defense which generally left him bruised and battered. In addition to that were the daily occlumency lessons. While Harry had mastered the art of blocking his mind of from Legilimency attacks years ago, this would not do at Hogwarts. He knew that if Dumbledore or Snape attempted to read his mind and failed it would raise too many suspicions. In order to prevent that he had to perfect another occlumency technique called False Mind. The technique consisted of creating false memories, so that when a legilimens attacked they would only be shown the false memories and hopefully would not suspect that things were being hidden from them. The main difficulty in this technique was that false memories generally lacked the detail of real memories. It took an inordinate amount of imagination and attention to detail to create a false memory that would be able to fool a master legilimens. However Harry had one huge advantage here, he had been provided with the complete set of memories from his earlier life, so at least he didn't have to create memories from scratch. All he had to do was shunt and redirect any legilimency attack into his carefully selected memories so that Dumbledore would only see what he expected to see - a poor downtrodden boy who had not been shown the slightest amount of love his entire life.

While this was going on Quirrell was holed up in the black family library researching healing techniques that might be used to cure Harry's scar. Whenever he emerged he would insist on going over the plan again and again trying to find any flaws that might have existed. No detail was too small for Quirrell, ever little facet had to be examined to the nth degree until Harry was utterly exhausted. The way things were going Harry thought that going to Hogwarts would be a relief, even dealing with Snape would be preferable to the endless debates that Quirrell subjected him to. Finally with just a week left to go before he had to head to Hogwarts, Harry had had enough and insisted on taking a break. He decided to spend the remaining time with his family especially as Dudley had been feeling rather abandoned without Harry around all the time. As the two of them were so close in age they had always tended to do everything together and now that they were both headed to different schools Dudley had started to feel a kind of separation anxiety. He had been moping and sulking around the house ever since Harry got his Hogwarts letter. On top of that his mother seemed to be having some kind of nervous breakdown as the reality of him heading to Hogwarts started to sink in, she seemed to alternate between resigned acceptance and utter hysteria twenty times a day. Harry knew she was terrified of something happening to him, she had lost her only sister to a deranged homicidal wizard after all, and he tried his best to reassure her, but so far he hadn't had much success. All in all it had been a totally nerve wracking month for the young boy.

o-o00o-o

As September dawned Harry found himself being dropped off at Kings Cross Station by an unusually sombre Vernon.

"All right Harry, here we are, Kings Cross Station, you sure you'll be able to find the platform on your own?"

"Yes Dad, we discussed this, you know they expect you to be nasty to me, and since you can't act at all, better to avoid anyone else seeing you."

"Come on, I wasn't that bad..."

"Dad, you barely managed to convince Hagrid, and he's really gullible."

"I just needed a bit more practice that's all."

"You kept apologizing to me, not to mention you looked horribly unconvincing and embarrassed when we were practicing."

"Well, it's not that easy to pretend to be someone who hates their own son, still think I could have managed though, I did act in a few plays back in college you know. Now are you sure you'll be okay?"

"Its okay Dad, I'll be fine, stop worrying."

"You'd better be, I swear if your mother hadn't promised her sister that you would be educated at Hogwarts I'd never let you within a hundred miles of that place. If you get so much as a scratch at that place, I'm sending you straight to Smeltings, promise or no promise."

"Dad we've been over this a hundred times, I need to do this."

"You're eleven Harry, you don't need to do anything, Smeltings is a great school, and we could always hire tutors through your Uncle Sirius to teach you all that other stuff. Plus you'll be with your brother, always good to have family to rely on."

"I know Dad, but I have to go to Hogwarts, there are things I need to do there, and I'll be fine. You really shouldn't worry so much."

"Can't help it, that man Dumbledore, the one who set up those wards will be there, I still can't believe anyone would be that cruel to a baby."

"It's ok Dad, you know I've got a plan, he won't be there for long."

"Promise me you'll be careful though, and keep that emergency portkey and the shrunken down broomstick that Sirius gave you on you at all times. Remember the first sign of trouble; you get out of the grounds and portkey home immediately."

"Yes Dad, stop worrying, things will be fine, and if things don't work as planned we're going to get the hell out of there. No way am I spending 7 years in Hogwarts with that old coot in charge."

"Okay, now remember, you may be a Potter but you were brought up a Dursley, and what don't Dursley's do?"

"We don't take crap from anyone."

"Damn straight, we don't. Now if anything at all comes up, you contact me immediately, you've got Sirius's mirror handy right?"

"Yep, got it right here, Mum's got the other one, I'll call you'll on it tonight as soon as I can get some privacy."

"Okay, now give your old man a hug and go give them hell."

"They won't know what hit them Dad; I'll talk to you soon all right."

Harry grabbed his trunk from the boot of the car, waved goodbye to his father and headed off to find platform 9 and three-quarters. Unlike last time, he knew exactly how to get onto the platform and wasted no time in getting to the train.

"First things first, got to find Hermione" he thought.

Harry had spent a lot of time thinking about his memories of his friends from his previous life and despite her inclination towards bossiness and tendency to worship authority figures he was truly looking forward to getting to know Hermione again. Ron Weasely on the other hand he would be better off avoiding he had decided. Apart from his mothers warning about the redheads activities, on analyzing his memories Harry had been shocked at how easily he had forgiven the boy's betrayal during the Triwizard Tournament as well as his abandonment during the Horcrux hunt. The boy had called him a cheat, refused to believe the truth and on top of all that not even warned him about a dragon, a bloody dragon for god's sake, and yet he had taken him back without even a proper apology on the prats part. He must have been truly desperate for friends to put up with such behavior. The person he was now would never tolerate such a betrayal from a friend.

"Things were going to be different this time around" he vowed to himself.

o-o00o-o

Harry had jammed a hat upon his head to hide the trademark scar, hopefully that along with the fact that he was wearing muggle clothes would be enough to stop people from recognizing him. He definitely didn't want to deal with the whole Boy-Who-Lived crap today, even though he knew he'd have to at some point. However he was hoping to put that off as much as possible. He had arrived relatively early and the train had hardly any students at this point, he briefly debated whether he should look for Hermione first or secure himself a compartment. That choice was made redundant soon as he saw a familiar head of bushy hair in the distance.

"That's lucky" he thought, "Guess Hermione came early as well." He waited a moment before following her into the same compartment which luckily enough had no other students in it yet. He entered and silently cast a wandless notice me not charm at the door. Hopefully that would prevent anyone else from entering so that he could get to know Hermione without any interruptions.

"Hi, is this seat taken?" he asked her.

"No, go ahead. Are you a first year as well?" said Hermione.

Harry tucked away his trunk which had earlier been charmed weightless into a corner of the compartment, before taking a seat across from Hermione.

"Yep? So you're a muggleborn right?"

"Yes, how could you tell? **Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard - I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough - I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you? " She said all this very fast.**

"Name's Harry, as for how I could tell, it was the clothes. Kids from wizarding families tend to dress differently. Even the ones who don't wear robes all the time tend to dress differently from what we're used to."

"We? So you're muggleborn as well."

"For all intents and purposes. Technically I'm a half-blood, but I was muggle raised."

"Oh." Hermione said, not quite sure if she should ask about why he was muggle-raised if he was a half-blood, then she pressed forward.

**"**Do you know what house you'll be in?** I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad."**

"Well, any house would do I suppose, except for Slytherin, I really don't like the whole snake thing they have going for them. But you said you've already learned the course books by heart?"

"Yes, I've even tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me."

"Okay, that's it, I'm calling dibs."

"Dibs?"

"Yeah, I'm calling dibs on you sitting next to me in class, also as a study partner."

"You can't call dibs on that?"

"Why not?"

"You just can't."

"That's not a reason, I'm calling dibs."

"Why? Just because I tried a few spells?"

"Not just that."

"Then why?"

"Well the spells and the fact that you've memorized all your text books simply proved one thing. You're smart, and if it's one thing I've learned is that smart people are way more interesting to hang around with than dumb people. Secondly you're really pretty which doesn't hurt at all."

"You think I'm pretty?" blushed Hermione.

"Yep, hell in a few years I'll have to beat the guys off you with a stick. I should write a reminder down actually, note to self - get a big stick."

"Very funny."

"And finally there's the fact that you're muggle raised like me."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"Have you tried hanging around with some of these so called pure blood kids?"

"Well, I haven't really met any yet."

"Trust me you're not missing anything, I mean I don't want to be rude, we are entering their little world after all, but some of these kids are absolutely hopeless."

"Really? How?"

"Well, for one thing most of them don't know anything about what's happening in the rest of the world. For instance they probably have no idea who Margaret Thatcher is, and if they do they'll probably tell you she's still the PM."

"They can't be that ignorant surely?"

"You have no idea. Most of them lead these horribly insulated lives. A bit like the Amish I would imagine."

"The Amish?"

"Yeah you know like in that Harrison Ford movie."

"Witness?"

"Yeah that's the one, and this is just another example. If I talked about a movie with some of these kids they wouldn't know what I'm talking about. So any kind of cultural reference is totally lost on them."

"Get back to the Amish, how are they like them?"

"Well think about it. Now I don't really know that much about the Amish, I'm just going off the movie here. But wizards are just like the Amish. They tend to live on their own away from normal people. They have a term for the normal people, in the movie the Amish called everyone else the English, wizards call everyone else muggles. They dress funny in an exceptionally old fashioned way, the Amish clothes were simple slightly old fashioned, these guys go around in dresses for gods sake. And the worst part is they don't use technology at all. You know what that means?"

"Uh, no computers or cars?"

"Worse. No TV. Can you imagine a life in which you've never seen an episode of Doctor Who?"

"That would be terrible, but they still have books."

"Yeah, but they don't read the same ones. I asked one kid what his favorite book was and he started talking about something called Babbity Rabbity and her cackling toe or stump or something. "

"Babbity Rabbity?"

"I know, right? And you can't even talk to them about football or cricket. No, if they're into sports at all, its some game called Quidditch which believe it or not is supposed to be played on brooms."

"I guess they can't help it, I heard that magic interferes with electricity in some way so you can't get muggle appliances to work in magical homes."

"I heard that too but I think that's total rubbish. I know someone who enchanted a motorcycle to work off of magic. Made it fly and everything. Now if he could do that, why can't someone enchant a television. The thing is, they've made that kind of thing illegal. They claim its because of the statute of secrecy, supposedly they're worried about an enchanted item falling into the hands of muggles, but you know what I think it really is?"

"What?"

"Information control. They only have a few newspapers in the magical world and something called the wizarding wireless. All of these are tightly controlled by the ministry. That way the ministry can control the sources of information. You know thats the first thing that any group goes after when they have a coup or revolution in a country right. They alway's try to get control of the television and radio stations. Control the flow of information and you control the public."

"That's a bit paranoid isn't it?"

"You've got a better explanation for why they seem centuries out of date?"

"No, but I've just entered the magical world, I barely know anything yet."

"You'll learn, but anyway, back to the main topic, do you agree I've got dibs?"

"I guess, but what if we're not sorted into the same house?"

"In that case we can still have our study group, but don't worry, as long as you don't get sorted into Slytherin, which is so not likely to happen, I'll make sure we're in the same house."

"How will you do that?"

"The sorting's alphabetical so you'll go before me and I'll just make them put me in the same house. Do you know how we're sorted?"

"Oddly enough it wasn't covered in Hogwarts, A History, even though they had a section on Sorting Songs. And none of the people I asked would tell me, they all just said - 'you'll see'."

"Yeah, I hate it when they do that too. Okay, it's a bit of an unofficial tradition not to tell kids how they'll be sorted, but what happens is that they make you wear a magic hat."

"A hat? You're kidding right?"

"I wish I was, anyway the hat reads your mind and decides on which house to place you in based on your personality. You know Ravenclaw for the smart, Gryffindor for the brave blah blah. That's the way its supposed to work anyway."

"Supposed to work?"

"Well, it seems that certain families always tend to be sorted into the same houses. Do you see that family of red heads just coming onto the platform?"

"Hard to miss them, seem to be a lot of them."

"Yeah, Seven kids, 2 of them have already graduated, the sixth should be in our year. Anyway all of them have traditionally been sorted into Gryffindor. Now I don't know about you, but I refuse to believe that the 5 kids who've been sorted so far all had exactly the same personality, not to mention the fact that their parents had the same personality as well. Does that seem feasible to you?"

"I think if you've been brought up in the same environment then..."

"Let me guess. Only child right?"

"Yes, but..."

"Well, if you'd have had any siblings you'd know that's just not true. Even twins can have wildly different personalities."

"So how do you explain it?"

"Obviously the hat takes your wishes into account. Some kid's heard stories about his parents house and how great it is his entire life, so when he comes to Hogwarts he wants to enter the same house and the hat obliges him, then the kid's sibling enters and want's to be in the same house as his brother etc., etc."

"So basically if you really want to be in a particular house, the hat will put you in it?"

"Yep, after all who has their personality set in stone at eleven anyway. The hat will put you in a house, you start identifying with that house's attributes and you start acting in the way you're supposed to. Kind of a self fulfilling prophecy if you ask me. So choose carefully because whichever house you're going in I'm going to tell the hat to put me in the same one."

"You'd do that for me?"

"Sure, why not. You're way better than any of the pure blood kids I've run across so far."

"So which house should we choose?"

"Truth be told, I think Ravenclaw would be the best fit for you. I know you said that you think Gryffindor's the best, but think about it - Gryffindor tends to attract the loud kids, the ones who'll only study if you force them to, kids who would never ever read a book for pleasure. Does that sound like someplace you'd want to be stuck for the next seven years?"

"You're right, those don't sound like the kind of people I'd be friends with."

"Or you could take your chances with the hat, if you don't request a house it should just put you in the house that's best suited for you. I bet that'll be Ravenclaw."

"You think so?"

"Hermione, I'd bet anything you want that no other kid on this train has already memorized all their books. How could you not be sorted into Ravenclaw?"

By now the train had started moving and all the students seemed to have been seated so Harry removed the Notice Me Not charm from the door of their compartment. He didn't want to miss the lady with the cart full of sweets after all.

o-o00o-o

A little while later after the sweet cart had been by Hermione and Harry were both on a bit of a sugar high after overdosing on Chocolate Frogs and Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans. Harry had had to persuade Hermione to try some of the sweets, there was something creepy about biting into a moving frog after all, but eventually she had not been able to resist them.

There was a knock on the compartment door and a young boy came in. Harry recognized Neville Longbottom right away even though he looked quite different from his memories. In his other set of memories the first time he had met Neville, he had been a tearful round faced boy who had been looking for his toad. This Neville looked a lot more athletic and not at all tearful.

"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad at all? I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"

"Guess some things always remain the same" thought Harry.

"No, but I'll keep an eye out for him, what did you say your name was?"

"Neville Longbottom."

"Longbottom? Any relation to Frank Longbottom?"

"He's my Father" said Neville.

"Wow, that's so cool" said Harry, turning to Hermione. "Frank Longbottom's an auror, he's famous for capturing Bellatrix Lestrange back during the last war. She was this really vicious terrorist, belonged to this group called Death Eater's."

"I've read about them in Modern Magical History and The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts and Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century. Did your Dad really capture one of them. That's amazing" said Hermione.

"Yeah, but he always gives the credit to my Mum. Claims that without her warning of their attack he would never have been able to capture them. Mum had a vision before the attack, you see, warning her that it was going to happen. Dad's been half convinced she's a Seer ever since."

"Your Mum had a vision? Wow?" said Hermione.

"Yeah, she was asleep and she dreamt that a friend of hers who had just passed away came and spoke to her about the attack. She never says who the friend was but she's always very sad when she talks about it."

"So what do you think it was?" said Harry, "Is your Mum really a Seer?"

"She always says no, she thinks her friend managed to give her the warning somehow."

All this time Neville had been looking at Harry strangely. "Excuse me, but you kind of look like the pictures of one of my father's friends. You wouldn't be Harry Potter would you?"

"You're Harry Potter" gasped Hermione. "Why didn't you say so, I've read all about you in those same history books."

"That's exactly why I didn't say I was Harry Potter" said Harry, "I prefer to get to know people first before I bring all that Boy-Who-Lived crap into it."

"But you are the Boy-Who-Lived" said Neville looking a little intimidated.

"Oh don't be like that Neville, most of that stuff was made up to sell books."

"Made up?" said Hermione, shocked that history books could have been filled with inaccurate information.

"Yep, out of all the people there that night, I'm the only survivor, and I was a little over a year old at the time so I couldn't tell you what happened. Yet there are all these books which claim to know exactly what happened. Ever since I heard about it, I've seriously been considering suing the publishers."

"You should definitely do that." raged Hermione. "How dare they make up stories and sell them as fact."

"I should probably be going" said a nervous looking Neville, he seemed to be slightly perturbed by Hermione's outrage. "I really should find Trevor."

"He'll turn up" said Harry.

Neville left the compartment but unfortunately it seemed that he could not keep the information that the Boy-Who-Lived was on the train to himself as hardly any time had passed before Draco Malfoy came knocking on their door.

**"Is it true?" he said. "They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?"**

"Yes" said Harry looking at the three boys that had entered the compartment. He pushed down the surge of anger that had come over him at seeing the three idiots that had been responsible for so much destruction during his previous life.

**"Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle," said the pale boy carelessly, noticing where Harry was looking. "And my name's Malfoy, Draco Malfoy."**

Hermione gave a slight snigger, no doubt thinking the boy was trying to introduce himself in the James Bond manner. Unfortunately this caused Draco to round on her in fury.

"Think my name's funny, do you? No need to ask who you are. You're obviously a mud..." Draco never got to finish the sentence however as before the word mudblood was even fully out of his mouth, Harry had leapt up and dragged the boy out of the compartment leaving Hermione behind with a befuddled Crabbe and Goyle. A few minutes later a visibly nervous Draco reentered the compartment with Harry following close behind.

"My dear Miss Granger, please permit me to apologise for my outburst earlier. I don't know what I was thinking and I do hope that you can kindly forgive me for my rash words" said Draco.

"It's quite all right I'm sure" said a puzzled Hermione.

"Thank you so much, now if you don't mind I'll take your leave" said Draco before hurrying out of the compartment flanked by his two minions.

"What just happened?" said Hermione, "Why did you drag him out of the compartment like that? And why did he look so nervous? Did you threaten him or something?"

"Do I look like the kind of guy who would stoop to threatening someone?" said Harry.

"I don't know, I just know you did something. Now spill."

"He was about to call you an extremely rude word, and I couldn't let him do that. Draco's a prat and if you're not someone important then you don't matter you see. He's one of those pureblood kids who thinks that a muggleborn is somehow inferior to them you know. His father's a former Death Eater so he's got his head filled with all sorts of crap."

"So what exactly did you do?"

"Well, if he had finished calling you that word, I'd have had to hit him at the very least, and getting into a fight before you're even in school didn't seem like the wisest move. So I just convinced him that he was making a huge mistake by being rude to you."

"How?"

"I told him that since he was my godfather's cousin's son, he was practically family and as such I felt I had to prevent him from making a big mistake."

"Is that true?"

"That he's related to my godfather? Yes. However Sirius actually told me to avoid him, he totally disapproves of the Malfoys. Anyway, so I told him that he was making a big mistake and that he SO didn't want to get you angry at him since it would have had terrible repercussions for him and his family."

"Really, how?" said a puzzled Hermione.

"I may have insinuated that you might be the long lost heir to the Ravenclaw line."

"WHAT? But-But the Ravenclaw line died out centuries ago, how could I possibly be the heir?"

"The thing is many pureblood families tend to disown any squibs born to them. However any wizards or witches born to these squibs can be reinstated into the family. If the rest of the family has died out and the person can prove that they're still related then they can in effect resurrect and take over the family as they're the only magical person left in that family. If the line of squibs is long enough it's possible that the current generation has totally forgotten that they're descended from a magical family. So it's totally possible that a muggleborn is really from the squib branch of a long dead family. You see?"

"I'm not sure... So you told him that I'm the heir to the Ravenclaw line, and he believed it?"

"I insinuated it. I let him fill in the blanks on his own. No doubt he's writing to his father right now about how he's just met the Ravenclaw heir."

"What happens when his father tells him I'm not?"

"How will his father know that you're not? I told him you're keeping it quiet because you're very shy and don't want all the extra attention. Besides all I have to do is have my godfather start the same rumor in the ministry and before you know it his father will be totally convinced as well."

"But-But why go to all that trouble?"

"No trouble at all, besides you heard how rude he was, now we're going to be at school with the kid for the next seven years. You really want to put up with his insults for the next seven years?"

"No, I guess not, but it still seems dishonest."

"Not really, only if you accept his gifts."

"Gifts?"

"Yeah he asked me to find out what you like, so that he can apologise properly. So what do you want? Chocolates? Flowers? Jewellery? Rare books? I'm sure I can arrange for any of those, the kid is loaded after all."

"But-But-But we can't just go around doing things like that."

"Sure we can Hermione. Stick with me and you'll be surprised at what all you can do."

o-o00o-o

*Text in bold was taken from J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

The remaining journey sped by and before Harry knew it he was once again before the doors of Hogwarts. He was assaulted with memories, a lot of them unpleasant, after all the last time he had seen the place he had been leaving it to go to his death, but interspersed with them were quite a few happy ones. In the distance he could see the Quidditch pitch that had been the setting of his best times at Hogwarts. There was the Whomping Willow that he and Ron had crashed into in second year. The lake from which he had had to rescue Ron. Flying on Buckbeak with Hermione. Dementors attacking him on the quidditch pitch. He remembered friends dying, others being horribly injured, the memories crashed over his consciousness in an unending stream until he ruthlessly crushed them and hid them away in the furthermost recesses of his mind. He could not afford to dwell on his previous life, he had to live in the here and now.

And now the sorting was going on and most of the people had already been sorted into the same houses that he remembered them being in, and Hermione's name was about to be called. He held his breath and crossed his fingers.

**"Granger, Hermione!"**

**Hermione almost ran to the stool and jammed the hat eagerly on her head.**

**"GRYFFINDOR!" shouted the hat. ***

"Damn what was with that girl. He went out of his way to steer her away towards Ravenclaw and she still ends up in Gryffindor. Guess her bravery won out over her cleverness. Stupid bloody Hat. Can't it see that she'd make a better Ravenclaw. Should have scrapped the damn thing years ago. And I was really looking forward to living in another house, stupid stupid hat. Oh well guess I'll have to be in Gryffindor too" he thought.

Soon enough it was his turn.

**"Potter, Harry!"**

**As Harry stepped forward, whispers suddenly broke out like little hissing fires all over the hall.**

**"Potter, did she say?"**

**"The Harry Potter?"**

**The last thing Harry saw before the hat dropped over his eyes was the hall full of people craning to get a good look at him. Next second he was looking at the black inside of the hat. He waited.***

_"Gryffindor Gryffindor Gryffindor Gryffindor"_

_"Hmm, haven't seen occulemency shields on a first year in quite a while. Excuse me young man but you'll have to drop them if you want me to sort you properly."_

_"No need for that just put me in Gryffindor.""_

_"That's not quite how it works you know, I am supposed to read your mind for this."_

_"Not going to happen. Just put me in Gryffindor."_

_"Are you sure?"_

_"Yes, now quit fooling around and put me in Gryffindor."_

_"Well, if you're sure then it'd better be GRYFFINDOR"_

o-o00o-o

_Dear Mum and Dad,  
I'm already missing you'll lots? I've reached the school and gotten sorted into Gryfiindor which is supposedly the house for the brave. I was expecting Ravenclaw as that's supposed to be the house for people who love books and learning but Gryffindor is also supposed to be good. I made a friend on the train, his name is Harry and he's also been sorted into the same house. I wanted to ask for some advice about him. The thing is he's quite nice and all but at the same time he told me a conspiracy theory about why he thinks Wizards don't have television. Something about information control. And there was this other boy who started being mean to me but then Harry convinced him that I'm the heir to Ravenclaw, which is sort of the wizarding equivalent of being related to the royal family and after that the boy started being all apologetic. The thing is, do you think this is normal? Is he just a little bit strange or is he totally crazy?  
Love,  
Hermione._

_Dear Father,  
You will never believe who I met on the train, I met Hermione Granger who is the heir to the Ravenclaw line. Oh and I also met Harry Potter, I think we're well on the way to becoming great friends even if he had the misfortune to be sorted into Gryffindor. I do need to get a great gift for Hermione though, just a little something to impress her. Just before the sorting I heard her quoting stuff from Hogwarts, A History, so she seems like the type of person who would appreciate a good book. Do you have any idea what I can give her._

_Your obedient son,  
Draco._

_Hey Mum,  
I know I was supposed to sit with Harry Potter on the train but I went over the whole train twice and never saw him. The first time I saw him was at the sorting, he must have flooed directly to the castle or sumting. But not to worry he and I are both Gryffindors so I'm sure we'll be best mates very soon. We are both in the same dorm but he's right on the other side of the dorm from me, maybe I can get one of the guys to switch with me later. Can you send me some cakes or chocolate biscuits, they just don't have enough dessert here._

_Luv,  
Ron._

o-o00o-o

Harry settled into his bed, thankfully he'd been prepared in case he was sorted into Gryffindor and he'd had Dobby make sure that Ron's luggage was placed on the furthest side of the dorm from him. He closed the curtains around his bed tightly, cast a few privacy and silencing spells then called Sirius.

"Hey Sirius"

"Hey Pup, why so glum?"

"Nothing, just I'm in Gryffindor."

"Oh come on that's a great thing, Gryffindor is the best."

"Yeah? You're not the one that has to listen to Ron Weasley snoring."

"Well, that's what silencing spells are for aren't they?"

"Yeah I guess so, anyway, just wanted to check in and let you know that everything went all right. I've reached the castle safely, no legimency attacks or anything like that so far."

"We didn't really expect Dumbledore to do anything like that on your first day, but keep your guard up."

"Will do, goodnight, and I'll check in again tomorrow same time, got to call Mum and Dad now."

"Okay Pup, take care."

o-o00o-o

_My Dearest Son,  
Never have I been prouder of you, rumors of the Ravenclaw heir resurfacing have been all over the ministry but no one had any idea of who she is. For you to find out who she is before school has even started properly is a great achievement. Do not tell anyone else who she is at the present time, if she is trying to keep it quiet she will resent you if you let everyone know who she is. I shall be attaching a signed first edition of Hogwarts a History with this letter. You must start laying a foundation with both her and Potter right away. It would be a wonderful thing if we can influence them to support our pureblood causes. No doubt Potter at least has had his head filled with Dumbledore's muggle loving propaganda, so be patient with him, and do not disparage muggles or muggleborns in front of him. We must wean him away from Dumbledore's influence gradually.  
_

_Your Father,  
Lucius Malfoy_

o-o00o-o

*Excerpt from Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

Apologies for the shorter chapter this time, I'll be making it up in the following chapters.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

* * *

**Whispers followed Harry from the moment he left his dormitory the next day. People lining up outside classrooms stood on tiptoe to get a look at him, or doubled back to pass him in the corridors again, staring.** *

While he had been expecting it he still found it incredibly annoying. He was actually quite thankful for having been brought up in the muggle world. He couldn't imagine how horrible it might have been if he had had to endure this level of scrutiny his entire life. On the other hand perhaps if he hadn't been away for so long they would have gotten used to him by now and the intense public interest in him would have died out. Another thing he was amazingly thankful for was the fact that his other set of memories included tons of knowledge about Hogwarts. The other first years were constantly getting lost thanks to Hogwart's moving staircases and corridors which seemed to change constantly. He also kept having to dodge Ron Weasley who seemed hell bent on getting to know him. To avoid him Harry had been forcing himself to get up earlier than the others in his dorm. It helped that Ron was already notorious for being the last one out of bed in the mornings. In addition he made sure that he always sat next to Hermione in class so that Ron couldn't accost him there. Instead of hanging out in the common room he spent a lot of time with Hermione in the library. He had managed to avoid the red-headed menace till then but he knew that was a state of affairs that couldn't last forever.

So far that week they had already had Herbology, Astronomy, Transfiguration and History of Magic (which was just as soporific as Harry remembered) so he'd asked Hermione if she wanted to study with him that evening. She had been a little ticked off at him because Draco Malfoy had cornered her earlier that day and insisted on giving her a present and had refused to take no for an answer. Of course Hermione being Hermione came right out and told him that she was a muggleborn and not related to Ravenclaw at all. Fortunately Malfoy had still refused to believe her and instead started insisting to her that she had nothing to worry about as he would never ever dream of revealing her secrets to the other students. Hermione found it all terribly embarrassing and blamed Harry for the whole thing. He was hoping to get back on her good side before long. After the usual delicious Hogwarts dinner, Harry and Hermione got together in the Gryffindor common room. He saw Ron coming towards him but he quickly pulled out his books and sure enough that was enough to deter Ron from approaching them.

"So did you want to get the homework out of the way? We've got the herbology essay and the transfiguration essay as well" asked Hermione.

"Nah, finished those already."

"When did you get the time to do that? We just got the transfiguration assignment today."

"During History of Magic of course, what were you doing during that class?"

"Harry! Why weren't you taking notes? What will you study from for the exams?"

"Oh for gods sake Hermione, don't tell me you took notes for that class."

"Well, of course, we'll need them."

"Crap, didn't I tell you about this? Binns has been giving the same lectures ever since he became a ghost, they haven't changed at all ever since he died."

"Still, you do need to take notes."

"Hermione, Hermione, Hermione. Wait just a second." Harry ran up to his dorm room and returned a few minutes later with a ridiculously thick file folder.

"There you go, that's your copy."

"My copy of what?"

"History of Magic notes for the next seven years of course. They were compiled by a Ravenclaw student a few decades ago and ever since they've been available from the upper year Ravenclaws. I'd have gotten only this years, but they only sell them as a set. So there you go, you're all set for History notes. I already verified, they're word for word exactly what he said in class, plus they have additional material on stuff that he forgets to cover but which generally shows up in the exams."

"That's - that's...why didn't you tell me about this earlier?"

"Sorry, sorry, must have slipped my mind, but hey I get points for picking up an extra copy for you don't I?"

"Yeah, I guess you do. How much do I owe you for this?"

"Forget it, Malfoy can't be the only one allowed to give you gifts now can he?"

Hermione gave Harry her best glare which unfortunately for her just seemed to amuse him.

"Anyway, so if you've already finished your homework what did you need help with?"

"Who said anything about me needing help?"

"Arghh, then why did you want to study together?"

"Cause it's better then studying alone, isn't it? So what do you need help in?"

"Me? But-But I thought you would need my help?" said a surprised Hermione.

"That's remarkably egotistical of you Hermione."

"But you said you wanted to be friends with me because I was smart. Why then if you don't need help?"

"Hermione, that was only one of the reasons I gave. I prefer hanging out with smart people because they're more interesting to talk to, and I want to be friends with you because I like you not because I need you to do my homework. Now do you want help with the herbology essay or would you like to do something else?"

"Well, I guess since you've already done the essay we could do something else."

"Okay, I've got an idea. Tell me, you must have done accidental magic as a child right? Did you ever get something, any type of object to come to you?"

"Yes, that was one of my first incidents, there was this book that I wanted to read but it was on a shelf that was too high for me to reach, I kept jumping up but I couldn't reach it and then it just fell off the shelf."

"Great, that kind of thing is one of the most common types of accidental magic, although for most kids it's because they can't reach the cookie jar or something." Harry pulled out a book from his bag, hiding the cover from Hermione. "This book is the best book you will ever read. No, No" Harry said pulling the book out of Hermione's reach. "You can't just be handed it, it is a very special book and the only way you will ever get to read it is if you make it come to you. Now I want you to imagine the book coming to your hands. Visualize it flying from my hand right into yours."

Hermione glared at the book. "Nothing's happening."

"Hermione, this book holds the answers to life, the universe and everything. If you don't get to read this book you might just fail all your exams and then they'll send you back to a non magical school. Do you want that? Do you want to fail? Come on Hermione, unless this book comes to you, you will never ever be able to learn magic properly. Are you a witch or not? Now make it come to you."

The book flew from Harry's hand and smacked into Hermione's hands with a thump. Harry smiled at a surprised Hermione.

"Congratulations Hermione, you just performed a wandless summoning charm."

"Wandless magic! But that's supposed to be terribly advanced. They don't even teach it here at Hogwarts."

"What is accidental magic Hermione? It's all wandless, right? The only difference is that one is controlled and the other is not. Now, how do you feel?"

"A bit tired."

"That's to be expected, wandless magic does require a lot more effort. You should rest a bit before trying again."

"Okay." Hermione finally got around to looking at the book. "Hey, this is The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy."

"I did tell you that it held the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything."

"Yes, but I didn't think you meant 42. That was amazing Harry, you have to teach me more stuff like that."

"Not a problem."

o-o00o-o

The next day was their first Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson which everybody had been looking forward to. Unfortunately it was yet another class with the Slytherins. Professor Quirrell was still sporting the turban which he told everyone had been given to him by an African prince as a thank you for getting rid of a zombie. It looked absurd but Quirrell thought that since he had started wearing it to hide the face in the back of his head he might as well continue in case Dumbledore asked him why he had stopped wearing it. Thankfully he had decided to forego the stutter.

The first years entered the DADA classroom to find Professor Quirrell waiting for them. He waited until they had all seated themselves before starting.

"Good morning class, I am Professor Quirrell and today I will be introducing you to Defense Against the Dark Arts. For now please put your wands away. Now who can tell me...Mr. Weasley you seem to be wearing some of your breakfast" said Quirrell pointing at a spot on Ron's Robes.

"Do you mind?" said Quirrell taking his wand and pointing it at the spot. On getting an embarrassed nod from Ron, he cast a scourgify which vanished the spot.

"That will be one point from Gryffindor Mr. Weasley. Would anyone in the class like to inform Mr. Weasley of the mistake he just made?"

"He shouldn't have dropped food on himself" sneered Malfoy.

"That was a thoroughly useless answer Mr Malfoy. Anybody else? No? Let me give you a hint then. Mr. Weasley do I look like your Mother? Your maid perhaps? No? Am I here to teach you Defense Against The Dark Arts or to do your laundry? Then why did you let me cast a spell on you Mr. Weasley? When a wizard points his wand at you IT IS A THREAT, and you have to treat it as a threat."

"But you're a professor" protested Ron.

"And? What do you know about me Mr. Weasley, Apart from that useless fact? Have I taken any oaths not to harm you? No! I could just as easily have cast a cutting spell that would have left you bleeding to death. For those of you too slow to understand my point let me be absolutely clear. When you were handed your wands you were being given a deadly weapon. A wand can be used to torture, maim or kill. Magic is not all unicorns and rainbows. This piece of wood is also the deadliest weapon that most of you will ever handle and it must be treated with respect. Now Mr. Weasley, what is Rule No 1?"

"Uhh, never let anyone point a wand at you?"

"Almost correct Mr. Weasley take five points for Gryffindor for helping me illustrate my point. Rule No 1 is that if you see a wand pointed at you - it is a threat and you will treat it as such. Duck, run away, do whatever you have to but do not let anyone you do not absolutely trust cast a spell on you. For our muggleborn students, when a wizard points a wand at you it is exactly the same as someone aiming a loaded gun at your head. Now can anyone guess what Rule No 2 is?"

The class was silent and absolutely no hands were raised.

"Rule No 2 is that you never ever point your wand at a person. Whenever you are holding your wands they must be pointed straight down at the floor at all times. If I see any of you wandering the halls with your wands pointed anywhere else but at the floor I will deduct points. Repeat offenders will be banned from my class. Is that clear? I said - Is that clear?"

"Yes, Professor Quirrell" chorused the class.

"Good. Now Rule No 3 is also very simple. Be aware of your field of fire. Right now you are just starting to learn and will have little or no control of your magic, so you will never ever cast a spell where it might hit a person, you will only practice spells when your field of fire is absolutely clear. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Professor Quirrell" chorused the class.

"Good. Rule No 4 is that you will never ever use what I have to teach you against another student. If I ever catch a student hexing another student I will have that student in detention for the rest of the year, and I will refuse to ever teach that student anything ever again. I don't care if your father is on the board of governors" this was with a quick glare at Malfoy, "or the Minister of Magic himself, if I hear of you hexing another student I will make sure you are punished most severely."

"Now, there is a small circle on each of your desks. Does everyone see it? Good, take out your wands and touch the circle with them." Quirrell waited a few minutes then waved his wand at the blackboard which filled with the names of the class. Each name had a time next to it.

"That is the amount of time taken by each of you to touch the circle. I see Mr. Potter managed to touch the circle first with a time of 2 seconds. That is very good Mr. Potter - for a beginner anyway, take one point for Gryffindor. Miss Brown could you tell me why it took you more than a minute to touch the circle with your wand?"

"I had to get my wand out of my bag Professor."

"And that leads me to my final rule. A wand is useless unless you can get to it quickly. If you had been in a combat situation Miss Brown, in that one minute you could have been killed many times over. Always make sure your wand is easily and quickly accessible. You might want to look into wand holsters and their like. Remember to take good care of your wand, keep it clean and well maintained, it may mean the difference between life and death someday. I want each of you to write these rules down now. Remember them for I will not be repeating this lesson but I will definitely be enforcing these rules."

Quirrell gave the class a few minutes while they all copied down his rules.

"Now, the name of this class is Defense Against the Dark Arts, can anyone give me a definition of what the Dark Arts are?" Hermione's hand was reaching for the sky. "Yes, Miss Granger."

"The Dark Arts consist of spells and rituals that are used for destructive purposes. It can refer to any type of magic that is mainly used to cause harm."

"Very good Miss Granger, take a point for Gryffindor. Now class, if I simply teach you all how to defend yourself against dark magic, do you think that is enough to keep you safe? Is Dark Magic the only thing you have to defend yourself from? Can you give me an example of a purely _light_ spell? Yes, Mr Finnegan."

"Well there's _Lumos_."

"Very good Mr. Finnegan, the _Lumos_ charm can of course can be used to provide light, as such I'm sure you'll will all agree that it is purely light magic that could never be used to harm anyone. Correct? Put up your hand if you agree."

Almost the entire class raised their hands. Professor Quirrell raised his wand and a bright flash of light blinked from the tip of his wand leaving the class blinking with watering eyes.

"How many of you are now seeing spots? That was just a variant of _Lumos_ that was developed for photography. Just a little more power and I could have blinded all of you for at least several minutes. Extending that spell could permanently damage your eyes. Now in the dark arts there is a blinding curse but why would I ever need it if I can blind you with a simple _Lumos_? Even that simple flash I just did might give me an edge in a duel. It does not matter if magic is Light or Dark children, what matters is how you use it and what you do with it."

Professor Quirrell then went on to demonstrate several other offensive uses for some common charms and spells, even going so far as to conjure up a training dummy to demonstrate upon. Finally he called the class to a close.

"For your homework assignment you will each select 5 spells from The Standard Book of Spells Grade 1 textbook and describe how you would use it in an offensive manner. In addition you will also select 5 spells from the examples of Dark spells provided in Chapter 4 of your DADA textbooks and describe how you might use them to help someone. In our next class we shall be covering basic jinxes and their counters so read ahead on those, but do not practice them on your own."

Quirrell dismissed the class but signaled Harry to stay behind for a minute.

"What did you think of your first DADA class Mr. Potter?"

"It was great Professor, although I did see some of the students looking a bit green when you showed them how to drown someone using the _Aquamenti_ charm."

"Excellent, it's very important to impress upon them exactly how dangerous magic can be. Can't have foolish children playing around with spells they don't fully understand. A little nausea now may save their lives someday."

o-o00o-o

*Excerpt from Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12 - The Potions Master

* * *

That Friday was their first Potions lesson, it was a double class with the Slytherins. Potions lessons took place down in one of the dungeons. It was colder here than up in the main castle, and would have been quite creepy enough without the pickled animals floating in glass jars all around the walls.

Snape started the class by taking the roll call, he paused at Harry's name.

"Ah, Yes," he said softly, "Harry Potter. Our new - celebrity."

Draco Malfoy and his friends Crabbe and Goyle sniggered behind their hands. Snape finished calling the names and looked up at the class. His eyes were black, cold and empty and made you think of dark tunnels.

"You are here to learn the subtle science and exact art of potionmaking," he began. He spoke in barely more than a whisper, but they caught every word - like Professor McGonagall, Snape had the gift of keeping a class silent without effort. "As there is little foolish wand-waving here, many of you will hardly believe this is magic. I don't expect you will really understand the beauty of the softly simmering cauldron with its shimmering fumes, the delicate power of liquids that creep through human veins, bewitching the mind, ensnaring the senses… I can teach you how to bottle fame, brew glory, even stopper death - if you aren't as big a bunch of dunderheads as I usually have to teach."

More silence followed this little speech. Hermione was on the edge of her seat and looked desperate to start proving that she wasn't a dunderhead.

"Potter!" said Snape suddenly. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

Hermione's hand had shot into the air.

"I don't know, sir," said Harry.

Snape's lips curled into a sneer.

"Tut, tut - fame clearly isn't everything."

He ignored Hermione's hand.

"Let's try again. Potter, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

"I'm sorry Professor I must have missed the announcement that there was going to be a quiz. When exactly did you make it?" said Harry. He turned to the other students and asked "Did the rest of you hear about it?"

"Thought you wouldn't open a book before coming, eh, Potter?" sneered Snape.

"Actually sir, considering that this is the first class of a subject that I'm sure is absolutely brand spanking new to most of the people here, I expected to be taught something before being quizzed. At the very least I should have been informed that we were expected to read ahead before coming to class. I mean that is the way most teachers do it, or did they not cover that in whatever the magical equivalent of teaching school is?"

"Teaching School? I'll have you know that I am a Potions Master Potter" said an apoplectic Snape.

"Ah, so you know your Potions but no one ever taught you how to teach then, that certainly explains a lot. I do apologize Professor, I shall remember your shortcomings in future."

A few people laughed; Harry caught Seamus's eye, and Seamus winked. Snape, however, was not pleased.

"Why you arrogant little... That shall be ten points from Gryffindor and detention this evening with me for your cheek Potter. As for the rest of you - for your information, asphodel and wormwood make a sleeping potion so powerful it is known as the Draught of Living Death. A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat and it will save you from most poisons. Well? Why aren't you all copying that down?"

As the Potions lesson continued Snape put them all into pairs and set them to mixing up a simple potion to cure boils. He swept around in his long black cloak, watching them weigh dried nettles and crush snake fangs, criticizing almost everyone except Malfoy, whom he seemed to like. He was just telling everyone to look at the perfect way Malfoy had stewed his horned slugs when clouds of acid green smoke and a loud hissing filled the dungeon. Neville had somehow managed to melt Seamus's cauldron into a twisted blob, and their potion was seeping across the stone floor, burning holes in people's shoes. Within seconds, the whole class was standing on their stools while Neville, who had been drenched in the potion when the cauldron collapsed, moaned in pain as angry red boils sprang up all over his arms and legs.

"Idiot boy!" snarled Snape, clearing the spilled potion away with one wave of his wand. "I suppose you added the porcupine quills before taking the cauldron off the fire?"

Neville whimpered as boils started to pop up all over his nose.

"Take him up to the hospital wing," Snape spat at Seamus.

Then he rounded on Harry and Hermione, who had been working next to Neville.

"You - Potter - why didn't you tell him not to add the quills? Thought he'd make you look good if he got it wrong, did you? That's another point you've lost for Gryffindor."

This was so unfair that even Hermione was outraged. She opened her mouth to protest but subsided at a look from Harry.

oo00oo

"I can't believe it, you lost eleven points for Gryffindor and got detention as well. What were you thinking? Talking to a Professor like that, honestly" said Hermione as they climbed the steps out of the dungeon an hour later

"It was the principle of the thing Hermione. He had no right to single me out like that. And why are you so hung up on house points anyway?"

"What? How can you say that? You heard Professor McGonaggal didn't you? The house with the most points wins the House cup. It's a big honor."

"Yes, the house wins? But what do YOU get? Personally I mean."

"Uh, the honor of being in the house that wins."

"Okay, let me back track a bit. Have you seen the records of house cup wins for the last few years. It's up on a board in the Great Hall."

"Yes, Slytherins been winning consecutively for the last few years."

"And yet the smartest kids in school are all supposed to be in Ravenclaw right?"

"Well, yes but maybe the the Ravens are just more book smart and if the Slytherins are better in practical magic then they would earn more points in class."

"Not if you look at the OWL and NEWT results, which have both practical as well as written exams. They have a record of the top scorers in the library and they're almost always Ravenclaws. So tell me Hermione - why is it that the Ravenclaws don't win the House Cup every year?"

"I don't know, people do say that Professor Snape is biased towards the Slytherins and awards them more points."

"Snape is biased, that's a fact, but he's also just one teacher, the other teachers should be more than enough to counteract him. So why does Slytherin win more house cups than Ravenclaw?"

"I don't know."

"Have you considered the fact that the Ravenclaws just might be smart enough to realize something that the rest of the school doesn't?"

"What?"

"House points are meaningless Hermione."

"But-But how can you say that?" said an outraged Hermione.

"For one thing they're not tracked at an individual level. They never show up on a report card and they don't affect your grades at all."

"They don't?"

"Nope. You're graded on your essays, assignments and tests only. And when you try and get a job after graduation, do you think they're going to ask you how many house points you won or lost. No - they're going to ask you about your OWL and NEWT scores."

"Then why do they have the house point system at all?"

"Come on Hermione, wake up and smell the manipulation. The house point system is simply a method for the teachers to enforce discipline through peer pressure. Nothing more than that. They know that if you lose too many points that the other students will get on your case and they use that as a means of making you behave the way they want you to."

"Then we should still try to earn points otherwise everyone else will hate us."

"Nobody will hate us if we don't earn points Hermione. Sure they might be mean if we lose too many points but not if you don't make points. They will hate someone who keeps showing them up in class though."

"You really think so? Are you saying that you hate me now because I tried to answer the questions Professor Snape asked you?"

"No, I don't hate you Hermione. Far from it. I was talking about the other students okay, they're the ones likely to resent you if you show them up in class. Just do me a favor and give someone else a chance to answer a question sometime. I'm not telling you to dumb yourself down or anything like that. All I'm saying is that when a professor asks a question - wait a bit. You can't always be the first one to jump up with your hand in the air. Kids tend to hate students like that, they start referring to them as teachers pets and the like."

"But I like earning house points."

"I know Hermione, I know, but consider this hypothetical situation. Say you get a reputation for being the top house point scorer in the entire school. Now say there's some subject you need some help with and the best student in that subject is not from our house. When you go to that student to ask for help do you really think they're going to help you? Why would they help you if it means you'd earn yet more points and their house ends up losing the house cup because of that? So what happens? Gryffindor might win the house cup but you personally lose by doing badly in that subject."

"I see what you mean."

"Good. Now remember I am NOT asking you to do badly in class. Go all out in the practicals, knock them out with excellent essays. Just tone it down a bit in class when it comes to answering the teachers questions. That's all."

"Okay" said a rather subdued Hermione.

"Cheer up Hermione, tell you what - let's go to the hospital wing and check on Neville."

oo00oo

After visiting Neville and then dropping Hermione off at the Gryffindor common room Harry went and found Professor McGonagall in her office.

"Professor, could I have a few minutes of your time?"

"Of course Mr. Potter, I always have time for my Gryffindors. What did you want to talk to me about?"

"It's about Professor Snape, he gave me a detention today and..."

"Let me stop you right there Mr. Potter, I do not interfere with another professors disciplinary actions. Whatever problems you have with Professor Snape you will have to take it up with him."

Harry just stared at his head of house for a moment.

"You know the other students did tell me that it was useless to talk to you about this, but I thought you'd at least hear me out before dismissing my concerns" lied Harry. He had not needed to talk to anyone about this. His other set of memories let him know exactly how McGonagall was going to react to this situation. In all his memories she had only stood up for him once, during his career counseling session in fifth year, and that time had been more because of her dislike of Umbridge rather than anything else, even then she had refused to listen to him when he had gone to complain to her about Umbridge's blood quill detentions. She had been no help when they went to her with their suspicions about the philosophers stone. Nor had she done anything when the entire school was calling him the heir to Slytherin and accusing him of attacking the muggleborns. Not even when he had been dragged into the Triwizard tournament and half the school had been wearing Potter Stinks badges had she been of any help.

"Mr. Potter, you will show respect when you talk to me. I will not be spoken to like this by a student."

"In my book respect has to be earned Professor, and as you don't like being talked to like this by a student, let me make it easy for you. I'm withdrawing from Hogwarts effective immediately. Kindly see to the refund of my fees. Goodbye."

With that Harry walked out the door and started down the corridor. He counted to himself. One - Two - Three and - "Mr Potter. Get back here immediately and explain yourself" shrieked McGonagall. Harry smirked to himself and turned around.

"I don't see any point in explaining anything to someone who does not wish to listen Professor. You had your chance to hear me out. You didn't take it and I am not in the habit of handing out second chances."

McGonagall hurried over to Harry and ushered him back into her office.

"All right Mr. Potter, I apologize for not hearing you out. Now would you like to tell me what happened?"

"Like I said before, Professor Snape gave me a detention earlier today and I just wanted to inform you that I will not be attending any detentions with him."

"Mr. Potter you cannot refuse to do a detention."

"Professor, why exactly am I famous?"

"What does that have to do with detention? Just because you are the Boy Who Lived does not mean that you are exempt from any disciplinary actions handed out by the teachers at this school."

"Did I say that? No, what I meant was I'm famous for supposedly defeating Voldemort when I was a baby, am I not?"

"Yes, Mr. Potter, but again I fail to see..."

"Now since I supposedly am responsible for the death of a Dark Lord, it's only natural to assume that his former followers don't look too kindly upon me. In fact I'm sure most of them would jump at the chance to do me harm. Wouldn't they?"

"Mr. Potter, I hardly think you have any reason to be concerned about that, Hogwarts is the safest place in Britain."

"Professor Snape has been glaring at me ever since I walked into this castle. He has been looking at me with undisguised loathing in his eyes and today he singled me out in class, tried his best to humiliate me and jumped at the chance to give me detention. Since I have never met the man before, the only reason I can see for his attitude is the fact that he is a former Death Eater and obviously blames me for his master's death. Therefore I refuse to attend detentions with him as I do not feel safe being alone with a Death Eater."

"Mr. Potter, just because someone does not like you does not mean that they are a Death Eater."

"Professor - do you take me for a fool? Just because I was raised by muggles does not mean that I am totally ignorant of the wizarding world. Once I found out about Voldemort and my status in the wizarding world I made it my business to find out as much as I could about what happened ten years ago. The Death Eater trials got extensive coverage and back issues of the Daily Prophet are available for a small fee. During the trial of a Death Eater named Karkaroff, Severus Snape was clearly named as being a Death Eater. Only Professor Dumbledore's intervention kept him out of Azkaban."

"Mr. Potter, not only has Professor Snape reformed but he also helped our side during the war. I assure you that he means you no harm, Professor Dumbledore has the utmost faith in Professor Snape."

"Professor, in order for me to accept that assurance I would have to have faith in the Headmaster's opinion. Unfortunately I do not."

"Mr. Potter, that is Albus Dumbledore you are talking about. You will not disrespect him."

"Professor McGonagall I am well aware of the Headmaster's reputation. However I have always been taught not to base my opinions on what others think. My parents always told me to only judge someone based on my own observations and not on hearsay. And well, so far all I've seen of the Headmaster was at the opening feast where his opening words were Nitwit, Blubber, Oddment and Tweak! This was followed a little while later by a statement that a painful death awaited me on the third floor of this school. What exactly in that was supposed to fill me with confidence in the Headmaster?"

MJcGonogal groaned silently to herself, she had known that Dumbledore's predilection for eccentric opening speeches would someday come back to bite him in the ass. However she had not expected him to be called on it by a eleven year old student. As for the third floor corridor, that was something she really did not want to talk about.

"Be that as it may, you cannot refuse to attend a detention."

"Well, in that case as I've already stated I shall be withdrawing from Hogwarts. I'm sure that some home schooling options are available. If not, I believe there is another school in France, Beauxbatons is also supposed to be quite a good school."

"Mr. Potter you cannot-I mean-What about your parents? They would have wanted you to attend Hogwarts."

"My parents died trying to protect me from Voldemort. They died trying to keep me safe. I hardly believe that they would have wanted me to dishonor their sacrifice by allowing myself to knowingly put myself in danger by being alone with a Death Eater during a detention. The man could tie me to the top of a lit cauldron and bugger me senseless. A few healing and memory charms later and I would not even be aware that anything had happened. I refuse to take that risk."

"Watch your language Mr. Potter" snapped McGonagall. "I didn't want to bring this up but I am certain that Professor Snape does not hate you because he is a former Death Eater." She softened her tone slightly - "The fact is, Professor Snape and your father did not have the best relationship when they attended school together and you do look a lot like your father. I'm sure he is simply reacting to that."

"So you seem to think it is acceptable for him to pick on me because he hated my father. Is that the level of professionalism I can expect from all the teachers here at Hogwarts? That they will feel entitled to carry out grudges against a man who has been dead for a decade?"

"That is not what I meant Mr. Potter" said an exasperated McGonagall.

"Then please do explain to me Professor - why exactly do you think I should endure abuse heaped on me by Professor Snape? I'm telling you right now that I have no intention of ever stepping into his class again."

"Potions is a required subject until you take your OWL's Mr. Potter."

"I have seen his teaching methods Professor. I would be far better served by studying the subject on my own. Even self study would be better than having to put up with that man. If and I emphasize IF I decide to continue at Hogwarts, that is the route I will take and I will expect a refund of my fees proportional to what I would be paying for Potions classes."

"Mr. Potter, will you please stop threatening to withdraw from Hogwarts. You simply cannot do that."

"Why not Professor? Last I checked this was a school not a prison."

McGonagall sighed in exasperation, she was torn between banging her head on her desk and throttling Severus Snape for creating this mess. If the Boy Who Lived withdrew from Hogwarts after attending just one week of classes the press would eat them alive. Especially if he told anyone that he was withdrawing because he didn't feel safe at Hogwarts. They would never be able to live it down. She could only imagine what someone like Rita Skeeter would have to say about the situation.

"All right Mr. Potter, I see I cannot convince you about Professor Snape. What can I do to persuade you to continue your schooling here at Hogwarts?"

"You can start by ensuring that Professor Snape never comes near me again. He is to be banned from ever interacting with me in any way. That includes house point deductions etc. I do not want to have the man even speak to me ever again. Ideally I would like you to arrange for another potions teacher but barring that I want you to authorize me to study potions on my own. Arrangements will have to be made for tests and exams to be graded by someone else. If that is not possible I would rather skip the yearly exams as I'm sure he is quite unable to grade me fairly. I will prepare on my own for the OWL's and NEWT's as they are graded by external examiners."

"All right Mr. Potter, I shall talk to the Headmaster and see what can be done."

"Please inform me of any decisions as soon as you can. If I have to arrange for alternative schooling I would prefer not to waste any time."

oo00oo

Professor McGonagall stormed up to Dumbledores office. She marched into his office and practically screamed at him.

"Albus get that greasy idiot up here right away. I want to know exactly what he was thinking."

"Greasy idiot? Who are you talking about Minerva?" twinkled a bemused Dumbledore.

"Severus of course. Get him up here, I want him to explain to me exactly what he was thinking. Thanks to his behavior in class today I have had to spend the last hour convincing Harry Potter not to leave Hogwarts."

"WHAT?" exclaimed a shocked Dumbledore. For Harry to have been willing to leave Hogwarts and go back to an abusive muggle household was unbelievable. Clearly Snape's behavior had been beyond the pale to warrant such a reaction. He knew that Severus would have had a problem with any son of James Potter but at the very least he had expected him to hold it together for longer than this. Just then the floo lit up. Frank Longbottom's face appeared in the flames.

"Albus, can I come through."

"Of course my boy, you know you're always welcome" said Dumbledore clearly grateful for the interruption. A minute later Frank Longbottom was stepping out of the fireplace.

"What can I do for you my boy?"

"You can start by explaining how my son wound up in the hospital wing after his first potions class. Then perhaps you can explain exactly what your pet rehabilitation project was thinking when he insulted the heir to the House of Longbottom by calling him an idiot in front of the entire class."

"He did what? So that's makes two of my Gryffindors he abused today. Get him up here Albus, I want to see exactly what he has to say for himself" snapped an infuriated McGonagall.

Dumbledore groaned. It looked like a bad situation had just gotten immeasurably worse. What had Severus been thinking to antagonize not only the Boy Who Lived but the son of Auror Frank Longbottom as well? The man held notoriously dim views of any Death Eater who had managed to escape imprisonment after the last war. For Severus to bring himself to his attention was just begging for trouble.

oo00oo

As Harry was leaving the Gryffindor common room for dinner he was hailed by Neville who was already looking like he was back to normal.

"Harry, Harry, wait up. My father wants to talk to you." Neville hurried up to Harry followed closely by an older man who from the family resemblance was clearly Neville's father.

"Hello Harry, it's wonderful to meet you after so many years. The last time I saw you, you were just a baby. You know whenever your parents came over you and Neville used to share a crib."

"I didn't know that. It's a pleasure to meet you as well sir."

"Oh no, please Harry there will be no 'sir'-ing me. Your parents and I were very good friends once upon a time and well, if things had been different you'd have grown up calling me Uncle Frank. I'd appreciate it if you could call me that instead."

"Of course sir, I mean Uncle Frank," smiled Harry.

"Just wanted to let you know that I've spoken to the Headmaster, after hearing about Neville's potion class today I've decided to pull him from that class and hire a tutor for him. After I heard about what happened with you and Snape I wanted to let you know that you're welcome to join Neville in those classes."

"Dad ripped Snape a new one. Wish I could have seen it" said Neville.

"Really? That's great. You have to let me chip in on the tutor's fees though."

"No-No, none of that, I'd be paying the fees for Neville anyway and the fees are the same whether its one student or twenty and I'm sure Neville would appreciate the company."

"In that case do you think it would be all right if I asked our friend Hermione to join us as well."

"The more the merrier Harry, the tutor will probably be coming in every Saturday for a couple of hours. I'll be owling the details to Neville so he'll let you know the times. Now one last thing, Neville's mother, your Aunt Alice would love to meet you, so perhaps you and your guardians could come over for dinner, say during your Christmas break."

"I'll send them an owl and ask them sir."

"It's Uncle Frank remember, now go on and have your dinner, I'll be expecting your owl with respect to your plans over Christmas so don't forget."

"I won't and thank you again Uncle Frank."

"No need to thank me at all Harry, it's the least I could do. I've heard from Neville here that your guardians are muggles so anytime you need help or advice in the wizarding world I want you to know that you should feel free to come to me. In the future if you ever have another problem with any teacher here please send me an owl immediately. I'll come over at once."

Harry was extremely happy to see Frank Longbottom alive and well. His memories had the man in an almost comatose state in the long term spell damage wing at St. Mungos. He looked forward to getting to know him and Neville's mother better. It was an unusually cheerful Harry Potter that went down to dinner that night.

oo00oo

[This chapter contained excerpts from Harry Potter and the Philosopher's stone.]


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

* * *

After dinner one night Harry received a note from Quirrell asking him to meet him in his quarters. They had been using Dobby to pass messages back and forth as that was the most secure method of communication. There were hundreds of house elves within Hogwarts and none of the staff would ever think twice about it even if they somehow managed to spot him. House elves were ridiculously good at going about their business unseen after all. Harry pulled out his version of the marauders map which Sirius had recreated for him. This version was in the form of an innocuous black notebook and was keyed only to Harry's magical signature. To anyone else it would appear to be nothing more than a school boy's notebook - full of class notes, doodles and the like. He checked the route to Quirrell's quarters and noticed that several teachers were currently wandering around the school. Instead of taking chances with his invisibility cloak he asked Dobby to pop him over to Quirrell's rooms directly. Less than a second later he found himself right in front of Quirrell surprising the former Dark Lord.

"Damn, don't do that. Don't you know it's considered rude to apparate directly into someones room. Not to mention, how did you do that anyway? You're not supposed to be able to apparate inside Hogwart's."

"It wasn't apparation. I had Dobby pop me over. They can't ward against elf travel or the elves would never be able to get anything done."

"Hmmm, can't believe I forgot about that. Most wizards wouldn't be caught dead letting an elf carry them to another place. Does make things a bit more secure, how convenient."

"What did you want anyway? Your message said you wanted to talk to me immediately."

"I believe I may have found a solution to our scar problem."

"Go on."

"As you know I have been approaching the problem as that of an interrupted, incomplete spell. This leads us to the inescapable conclusion that one simple way of dealing with it, is to simply complete the spell."

"Huh? But the only way to complete it would be for you to kill me. Isn't that right?"

"Yes, and that would obviously not be something we would want to do."

"Obviously, yes" said Harry in an extremely dry tone.

"Now as you know conventional methods of dispelling curses mostly involve a counter curse. However no one has ever developed a counter curse for the Killing curse simply because it is impossible to reverse death."

"Unless we use your horcrux method, of course."

"Please don't mention that again, it would be quite counter productive to our discussion."

"Sorry, anyway what about something like a _Finite Incantatem_? That's used for dispelling curses right. Why not give it a try?"

"Potter, please. Yes, _Finite Incantatem_ is a general counter spell, but it cannot reverse everything. Please don't forget that this spell has been attached to you for the last decade. The amount of power required to dispel it would be massive. While I might be able to manage it, once again we run into the problem that it has never been done before. What if a Finite on it has some sort of side effect. It would do you no good if a finite on your scar would for example release enough energy to blow your skull open."

"We could try to recreate the interrupted Adava on something else, like a rat or something."

"I have tried, and I used mice for your information, but whatever protected you that night is impossible for me to duplicate. Trying to interrupt my own spell either results in the spell failing completely or killing the test subject."

"So what do we do? I assume you had some idea other than killing me to complete the spell."

"Yes, let me ask you a question Potter? Do you know why most wizards need to get up close and personal in a fight? Why don't we attack from a nice safe distance like the muggles do with their rifles and guns?"

"Don't most spells lose power the further you are from the target?"

"Yes, to some extent. However for a truly powerful wizard that is not a consideration. My killing curse could conceivably still be able to kill you even if I cast it from a mile away. However I would never even think about attempting an attack from that distance. Care to guess why?"

"Not really, no."

"Accuracy, Potter. I've seen your practice sessions with Mr. Black. One of the things he had you doing was dodging spells. So you know that spells have to be aimed at your opponent, correct?"

"Yes."

"Now, in the muggle world, you have hand guns as well as rifles. Have you ever thought about why rifles are used over hand guns? Hand guns are far more convenient to carry after all."

"Rifles are more powerful and more accurate."

"Precisely, the longer barrel of the rifle makes it far more accurate than a hand gun. The wand as a weapon is far closer to a small short barreled revolver than say a hunting rifle. It is impossible for the average wizard to hit a target further than 30 or 40 meters using a wand. Even with countless hours of target practice most wizards would be unable to hit anything that is further than a 100 meters."

"So the wand is useless for long range attacks."

"Not completely, a bombardment curse which would blow up a large area would still be a viable method of attack. However something like the killing curse is impossible to aim from a distance. During the Grindlewald war a lot of research went into this problem. There was talk of setting up a sort of magical sniper team. They researched ideas such as the use of longer wands to provide greater accuracy. This was not viable as the power requirements to use such a wand are beyond the average wizard. Eventually they came up with the _Praemonstro_ spell. What this does is allow you to shift the target of the spell after it is cast. This was again of very limited use as the spell has to be cast instantly after the first spell. The power required to cast a killing curse is such that casting a second spell so quickly after is beyond the capabilities of most wizards. However the spell does work and if cast correctly will allow the caster to guide the original spell right to the target, if the target moves the caster can modify the original spell's trajectory to compensate. Line of sight is still required obviously."

"So, you want to cast this _Praemonstro_ on my scar and shift the curse away from me, say to a mouse and then complete it?"

"Precisely. As this has been tested with the killing curse before, we do not need to worry about any side effects. I will simply attempt to shift the spell off of you."

"Wait, I thought you said the spell has to be cast instantly after the first."

"That is simply because in order to control the first spell, one must capture it with the _Praemonstro_ before it has moved too far away. In our case, the spell is frozen upon your person so that is not a consideration."

"Okay, this sounds feasible, but I want Sirius's opinion before we do anything."

"Of course Mr. Potter, I shall send him all my research before we attempt this. There is also the consideration that Dumbledore might notice the difference in your scar and this might arouse his suspicions."

"You're right. So we shouldn't attempt this until we're ready to take on Dumbledore."

"Precisely, all the elements of our plan are not yet in place. I propose we attempt this right before we make our move against Dumbledore."

"Before? Not after?"

"Mr. Potter, one must always take the worst case scenario into account. If our plan against Dumbledore goes awry, there is the possibility that I might be injured or die. Therefore we should try this immediately before we make our move."

"Okay, sounds like a plan."

"Excellent, now why don't you get Dobby to help you back to your dorm? I'm sure you need your sleep."

"Goodnight Professor."

oo00oo

Harry had Dobby drop him off close to the entrance to his common room after checking his map to be certain that there was no one around to see him suddenly appear. As he entered through the portrait Ron spotted him and came bouncing up like an eager puppy.

"Hey Harry, want to play a game of chess mate? How about gobstones?"

"Hey. It's Ron, right? Sorry buddy, I promised to go over this week's homework with Hermione. Maybe some other time."

With that Harry swiftly walked away from a disappointed Ron. Luckily for him Hermione was still in the common room and he rushed to claim the empty place next to her.

"Harry, what was that about? We weren't scheduled to do homework today. I thought we were going to take the night off" asked Hermione who had overheard the entire conversation. Luckily she was speaking softly so Ron did not hear her.

"I know, just didn't want to be around that guy" whispered Harry.

"But why? Why did you brush Ron off like that? He seems so eager to be your friend."

"That's just it. You know how famous I am right? For someone to be so eager to be my friend just makes me suspicious. He obviously just wants to be friends with the Boy Who Lived. Not me, not Harry Potter - muggle raised first year student."

"Still, you could give him a chance."

Harry decided to put up a privacy charm before continuing. He put up a simple one that he could do wandlessly and silently so that no one would notice. This would prevent anyone from overhearing their conversation.

"I don't know Hermione, there's also the matter of his family. I'm not sure they're the right sort." _"Hmm" thought Harry, "the right sort? Damn it I'm starting to sound like Malfoy."_

"Why?"

"You know about the last war right?"

"Yes, but I never heard that the Weasley's were on Voldemort's side."

"No, they supported Dumbledore, but that's not the point. The thing is - Voldemort got the Purebloods support by playing on their fears of the muggleborns. They were calling for the extermination of all muggleborns and for greater power to the purebloods and all that rot."

"Yes, I know that."

"So, say you're a believer in that whole purebloods are better stuff. And your main problem is the increasing number of muggleborns, however you're too squeamish, or maybe just too moral, to support killing them off. What are your options?"

"I don't know. Don't inform them of the wizarding world. Don't let them attend Hogwarts."

"That's not viable because nearly all magical children have incidents of accidental magic. Leave them out there and untrained and how long will it be before the non magical goverments start realising that there's this whole bunch of people with unexplained abilities. How soon will it be before they start researching it? What if they manage to learn how to control it on their own? Even if you're crazy enough to start killing them off eventually someone is going to start looking into it, especially if it's a bunch of children getting murdered. No, in order for the Statute of Secrecy to remain unbroken, muggleborns have to be brought into the wizarding world."

"Okay, but I'm still not getting what that has to do with the Weasleys"

"Let's say you believe that purebloods are superior. You can't kill them off, you can't keep them untrained, and every year more and more muggleborns enter the wizarding world. You know if things continue the way they are, purebloods will soon be a minority and then what's going to happen to your cushy little pureblood existence, which depends upon you being on top of the wizarding heap. How do you prevent muggleborns from out numbering the purebloods?"

"The only option left seems to somehow increase the number of purebloods. And the only way you can do that is by having more..."

"By having more pureblood children. Exactly! And the Weasleys have SEVEN children. SEVEN!"

"Maybe their parents just wanted a large family."

"A large family is three or four kids Hermione. They don't have a family; they have an entire quidditch team, even though they clearly can't afford it."

"What makes you say that Harry? We don't know much about them. Why do you say they can't afford it?"

"Have a look at Weasley's wand sometime. It's chipped in places and it's got a bit of Unicorn hair poking out it. Your wand is the single most important piece of equipment you own Hermione, and it has to be matched to you. If a parent can't afford to get their child a proper wand, clearly they can't afford to properly raise that child. And lets not forget that in the wizarding world contraceptive potions are cheap, widely available and extremely safe to use as well. There are also none of those religious beliefs against contraception to prevent anyone from using them. So we have a family that has deliberately chosen to have more kids than they can afford. I don't know about you, but that just screams pureblood fanatics to me."

"But you've seen how he acts around Malfoy, he clearly hates Malfoy, and we know from the way that Malfoy talks that his father is also a pureblood fanatic."

"Yes, but they both have very opposing viewpoints. For Malfoy, Weasley's a blood traitor for not supporting the extermination of muddleborns. What do you think Weasley's view of Malfoy is? After all Malfoy's father is supposed to be extremely well off and yet he has only one child. To someone who's had seven kids - a pureblood wizard who's only got one? Why, that must make Malfoy Senior the worst kind of blood traitor in Weasley's opinion."

"Oh my god! That does make a certain kind of sense. Still, if Ron's father supported Dumbledore he can't be all bad."

"Still makes them a family of pureblood fanatics, just of a different sort than Voldemort's kind, and I don't want to become friendly with someone who might be looking down at me condescendingly just because my mother was a muggleborn. Even if he's all friendly on the surface who knows what he's really thinking. It's best to just avoid people like that."

oo00oo

The next Thursday found Dumbledore wondering what to do about Harry Potter. After the incident with Snape, he had decided it would be best to move up his timetable with regards to the boy. He needed to endear himself to the boy as soon as possible. If only he still had the invisibility cloak. He could have anonymously gifted it to the boy. No doubt the boy would have been eager to explore the castle after curfew. A tracking charm on the cloak would have allowed him to catch the boy out after hours. Letting him go without punishment would no doubt have cemented his kindly grandfather role with the boy. Unfortunately the cloak was now with Sirius Black who seemed to show no inclination to contact the boy, let alone give him his father's cloak. Shocking really, but what could you expect from a Black?

"Perhaps I should remind Sirius of his responsibilities as a godfather. A gentle reminder that he should think about giving the boy the cloak. No, Black could not be allowed to influence the boy. He must see me as his refuge from the muggles, not Black. I must find some other way to manipulate the boy" thought Dumbledore.

Just then Dumbledore noticed the group of first years getting their first flying lesson. He could see them bobbing up and down in the distance. Harry's mop of unruly black hair made him quite distinctive even at that distance.

"Hmm, the boy does seem quite comfortable on a broom, seems like a natural. Perhaps I should see if he is interested in playing Quidditch. Minerva was mentioning something about having to find a new seeker for the Gryffindor team. Perhaps waiving that rule about first years being allowed brooms might make the boy feel indebted to me. Pity I can't use Minerva to soften the way, not after the way she reacted over the Snape thing. I'll just have to talk to the boy myself. Hmmm." Dumbledore popped another lemon drop into his mouth before leaving his office.

oo00oo

Harry left his first flying lesson feeling quite pleased. He had not been expecting a repeat of the Remembrall incident, Draco was being astonishingly civil to both him and Hermione and so far had not antagonized any of the other Gryffindor students either, perhaps he thought that insulting their house mates would not endear himself to them. But apart from that this time around it seemed Neville's father had taught Neville how to fly years ago. Without Neville falling off his broom, not only had there been no repeat of the Remembrall incident it had also had the unexpected side effect of Hermione doing much better at flying. It seemed that watching a boy fall off a broom and break his arm had put her off flying in the previous time line. In this one she had done exceptionally well at her flying lesson and had seemed to enjoy herself immensely. As he entered the castle he found himself suddenly coming across Dumbledore who had been standing there clearly waiting for him.

"Oh Crap, What now?" thought Harry as he instantly reinforced his occlumency shields.

"Harry my boy. How are you doing?" asked the Headmaster, twinkling away and doing his best grandfather impression.

"I'm fine Headmaster, thank you for asking."

"Ahem, well I couldn't help but notice that you seemed quite skilled out there. Extraordinary really, especially as that was your first lesson."

"Thank you Headmaster, flying is a lot of fun."

"Excellent my boy, now tell me, did you know that the Gryffindor Quidditch team needs a new seeker? Perhaps you should think about playing for your house."

"I thought you needed your own broom to play and that first years aren't allowed to have brooms" said Harry putting on a puzzled face.

"Normally that would be true my boy, but exceptions can always be made. Especially for someone skilled enough to get on their house team."

"Really, wow, that's great news" said Harry. "NEVILLE, SEAMUS, DEAN - THE HEADMASTER SAYS WE CAN TRY OUT FOR QUIDDITCH AND GET OUR OWN BROOMS" yelled Harry as he waved to the other boys.

All the other boys including the Slytherins, who were still quite close by, came running up immediately, wide eyed, all looking extremely excited.

"Really Headmaster? We can try out for Quidditch?" cried Malfoy.

"Ahem…Uh…Of course, of course - there is, after all, no rule about not allowing first years to try out for Quidditch."

"And if we get on any team, we can get our own brooms. Isn't that great?" yelled Harry.

The other boys were extremely excited and showered the Headmaster with thanks before running off to find the Quidditch sign up sheets.

"What just happened?" thought a bemused Dumbledore. He turned around to find Madam Hooch glaring at him.

"Have you decided to replace me as flying instructor Headmaster?"

"No-No Madam Hooch I would never dream of replacing someone of your caliber."

"Then where do you get off telling the first years they are allowed to try out for Quidditch? I have yet to certify any of them as having the requisite skill. Does Madam Pomfrey not have enough patients?"

Dumbledore groaned silently to himself. This looked like it was going to be another long conversation.

oo00oo

"So you're going to tryout for Quidditch?" asked Hermione.

"Nope!"

"Then what was that all about?"

"That was the Headmaster trying to ingratiate himself with me by allowing me to tryout for Quidditch. I decided I didn't need anyone giving me special favors and so I forced him to give everyone the same chance by announcing it to everyone."

"Why was he trying to do that?"

"Hello, exceptionally famous boy here, remember."

"Yes, yes, not like I can forget. But why don't you want to tryout for Quidditch? None of the other boys can talk about anything else."

"Hmm, how best to explain this? I saw you reading that Quidditch book, so you're familiar with how it's played right?"

"_Quidditch Through the Ages_. Yes, I was looking for flying tips, but yes I did read the game rules as well."

"So you know about the bludgers?"

"Yes."

"Tell me - ever played Dodgeball?"

"A few times, back at my old school."

"How did it feel when you got hit by a ball?"

"Painful, especially if it hit my nose or face."

"Right and that was playing against people your own age. The Quidditch team is formed from students across all years. That naturally means that most of the players are older. So I want you to imagine playing Dodgeball against seventeen year olds. Have you seen the size of Marcus Flint? He's the captain of the Slytherin team and he's only a fifth year. Imagine someone even larger than him tossing a ball right at your face. And don't forget that bludgers are a lot harder than any ball used in dodgeball, not to mention the fact that this is all happening high up in the air. Now tell me again why I should be excited about playing Quidditch."

"Point taken" said a rather green looking Hermione. Unfortunately she had been blessed with an excellent imagination and the thought of a burly seventeen year old tossing a hard ball at her face made her feel quite ill.

"But then, what about the other boys? Won't they get hurt trying to play?"

"They might, but come on; I don't think any of them will manage to get selected. Most likely they're just going to have a great time trying out. No point in ruining their fun by pointing out how absurdly dangerous the game is."

"Yeah, I guess not."

"So, what would you like to do now? Want to go have tea with Hagrid? He's invited me over a couple of times."

"Okay."

oo00oo

* * *

Before I start getting hate mail, I should point out that Arthur Weasley is in no way a pureblood fanatic. Harry simply needs to give Hermione a reason for why he's been avoiding Ron and this is what he came up with.


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

* * *

Ron Weasley was not a happy camper. He had tried time and again to make friends with Harry Potter but had been thwarted at every turn. Either the boy was not to be found or he was busy doing something with that annoying know-it-all girl. The other day, for the first time he had managed to get the boy alone and the boy had flat out refused to play. What kind of boy would rather do homework with A-A GIRL, then having fun? He had to be some sort of sissy. If only his mother wasn't so hell bent on making sure he got to know the boy. He had gotten yet another letter from her this morning asking him about his progress and the constant nagging was driving him up the wall. Why did he have to be the one forced to make friends with the sissy? Suddenly an idea bloomed in his mind and he swiftly grabbed a parchment and quill.

_Hey Mum,_

_How are things at home? Just wanted to let you know that you can stop asking me to get chummy with Harry Potter. He and I spent ages playing chess yesterday and are now best mates. He'd probably love to try some of your pumpkin pie, so send me some._

_Luv,_

_Ron._

Ron smirked as he looked over his letter. 'That should get her off my back" he thought before heading off to the owlery to send the letter. He was already daydreaming about the pie.

.oo00oo.

"Potter, all the elements of our plan are nearly in place. It's high time you made your decision regarding Snape."

Harry was once again in Quirrell's quarters, Sirius was also attending the meeting through one of the charmed mirrors which Harry had set up on a stand so that Sirius could see both of them.

"The thing is Professor, I absolutely detest the man and part of me really wants to say yes. I'm afraid that I'm letting that affect my judgment and I really don't want to condemn a man based purely on my personal feelings."

"What is the hold up? He was one of my inner circle and for that he deserves to die. Plain and simple. He has to pay for his crimes along with the rest of them."

"Unlike the others there are some mitigating circumstances with Snape."

"Really, are you talking about that cock and bull story about him being a spy for Dumbledore. You forget Potter, I knew - no, I know Snape. He was clearly the most intelligent of all my Death Eaters. Do you really think someone as brilliant as that would not have hedged his bets. He was the one who informed me of the prophecy after all. That alone would have given him enough reason to go to Dumbledore. He was simply protecting himself against the chance that the prophecy was in fact true."

"He's got a point Harry" interjected Sirius.

"I know, I know, but what if he truly repented? There is the slim chance of that."

"Really? If he had truly repented he would have some guilt about your parents deaths. Would he have treated you the way he did? Everyone has heard about your first Potions class. You do not treat an eleven year old child that way Potter."

"Pot calling Kettle. You put Weasley on the spot in your class. True, it was nowhere as vicious as Snape but you did embarrass the boy. Not that I'm complaining, as far as I'm concerned you can embarrass him whenever you want."

"And then I gave him points to make up for it. Did Snape do that with you? Was he trying to make a point or was he simply bent on humiliating you?"

"Yes, yes, I know. But how do we know for a fact that Snape wasn't truly trying to reform. He did ask you to spare my mother, right?"

"Is that what this is about? Yes, Potter, he did ask me to spare your mother, but that is ALL he did. He was one of the people I consulted when I was attempting to ascertain who the child of prophecy was. You know there were two choices - You and the Longbottom boy. If Snape truly wanted to protect your mother he could have attempted to convince me that the Longbottom boy was the one that the prophecy spoke off. Did he do that? No. For that matter, Mr. Black here was not in hiding at the time. He was in fact quite visible as he acted as bait. Snape could easily have warned him when I was close to finding you. Simply sending him an owl would have been enough. Did he do that? No. True, he hated Mr. Black, but if he had truly wanted to help your mother he would have looked past that and found a way to warn her. All he did was go to Dumbledore, pretend to be remorseful and agree to act as a spy. Those are the actions of someone looking out for themselves, nothing more than that. And lets not forget the fact that he was only too happy at the thought of your father being murdered."

"Still, as long as there is the slightest chance of him not truly being evil - I find it hard to condemn him to death."

"In that case, I vote we arrange for him to get arrested. At his trial, I will make the motion that he is be interrogated under Veritaserum. If we find that he does in fact deserve to die, why then - chances are that the Wizengamot will sentence him to die. Even if they don't, he will probably get sent to Azkaban. That's worse than death in my book" said Sirius.

"And what if he somehow manages to get off? He is a Potions Master and an expert Occlumens, there is the chance that he can beat Veritaserum" snarled Quirrell, "What will you do then?"

"Then-Then we track him down and kill him" said Sirius.

"I guess that's our best option" said Harry.

"Fine, but don't blame me if the man manages to escape" said Quirrell.

"We won't. I'll blame myself if that happens. Is that acceptable to you?" said Harry.

"Fine, it's decided then. We shall make sure he gets arrested. Then we shall see what happens at his trial."

"So where are we on the rest of the plan?" said Sirius.

"I have been ordered to procure a troll for the stones protection. Once that is in place we can implement the first part of the plan."

"How long will that take you?" said Sirius.

"It should be here by next week" said Quirrell.

"So, everything is more or less on track then. Excellent" said Harry.

.oo00oo.

Harry was sitting in the Gryffindor common room waving his wand at what used to be a matchbox. Now it was sporting rather more legs than nature would have found feasible. He was still wound up after his meeting with Sirius and Quirrell and he figured that concentrating on a little transfiguration might help him to relax.

"Hey Harry."

"What's up Hermione?"

"Well, I just found out that you were wrong about something."

"What would that be? Pray tell?" Harry said, a bit put off at the smugness in her voice but he decided to ignore it. The girl did love to parade her knowledge after all.

"Remember when we were talking about electronic items on the train and you said that electrical items can be made to work around magic. Well, have a look at this section in _Hogwarts, A History_, it clearly says that electronic items or electrical appliances don't work in Hogwarts due to the large amounts of magic in the air."

"Hermione, how many times do I have to tell you that you can't believe everything you read?"

"Aha, but I confirmed this. I spoke to some of the older muggleborn students and all of them say that their electronic stuff stops working after a while."

"So?"

"So that proves it, doesn't it?"

"Okay, lets start at the beginning, you said that electronic items stop working after a while. Now what type of items are these?" Harry frowned at his transfigured creation. It needed ... something. He jabbed his wand at it and added an eye.

"The student I spoke to said her Walkman shorted out after a couple of weeks."

"So we're talking about music players. Do you know when music players first started becoming truly portable."

"I'm not sure, but if I had to guess probably around the fifties or sixties."

"Right. What kind of music was getting popular around then?"

"Rock and Roll of course."

"Ever see any of those movies about the birth of rock and roll. One of the really common themes was about the reaction of the older generation to that type of music. There were a ton of people who claimed Rock and Roll was subversive and was going to corrupt the youth of the day. Remember _Footloose_? That came out in the eighties and it still had Rock music and dancing being banned in some town."

"Yes, but that was just a movie."

"True, but that doesn't change the fact that a lot of people did not approve of that type of music, and those were in the normal world. You've seen how wizards are, their culture is clearly far more conservative."

"I'm still not seeing what that has to do with electronic items."

"So, it's the sixties, portable cassette players are becoming popular and affordable, so obviously some muggleborn students would have started getting them to school. In fact that's probably the first type of electronic items that were brought to Hogwarts. Is that a fair assumption?"

"I guess."

"So what do you think the staffs reaction was the first time they walked into a common room and heard the Beatles singing _It's been a Hard Day's Night_. What do you think their reaction was to lines like -_ 'when I get home to you I find the things that you do will make me feel alright'_. Especially because it sounds like they're singing _'when I get on top of you'_."

"Ummm..."

"I would assume that the Headmaster of the time was quite horrified, and that was a reasonably, in fact - extremely tame song. So what would a dyed in the wool conservative wizard do in this type of situation?"

"He could have simply forbidden the use of music players or playing music in the common room."

"Oh please, Dumbledore talked about the list of forbidden items at the opening feast. Does anybody ever bother to read the list? I think not."

"So what do you think they did?"

"Modified the Hogwarts wards to fry any electronic item that is used within the school of course. He's not going to tell the students he's done that because if they knew that they might start looking for ways around it. Some sort of Faraday Cage would probably work quite well. So he simply tells the staff to tell any student that asks that electrical items don't work around magic. Purebloods wouldn't care and muggleborns can't practice magic at home so there's really no way they can test it. Not until they leave school at least, at which point they probably assume that it's just Hogwarts that had levels of magic high enough to affect electrical gadgets."

"Ungghhh, I'm getting a headache. Honestly Harry, you and your conspiracy theories are going to drive me crazy."

"Hermione, just because I have a theory regarding why muggle tech doesn't work in Hogwarts doesn't make it a conspiracy theory. And - if you're so sure I'm wrong, how do you explain Diagon Alley?"

"Huh?"

"Diagon Alley and the Ministry are both in London. That's one of the most densely populated areas in all of Britain. If magic really interferes with electronics then there should be a large zone around Charing Cross Road where muggle electronics would simply refuse to work. The Ministry is somewhere near Whitehall in Central London. Do you really think the muggles would not notice something like that?"

"But still, music being the reason that electronics don't work here. You have to admit that's a little far fetched."

"Well, Rock is only one reason for someone to prevent electronics from working here. For all I know, previous Headmasters simply didn't like any kind of Muggle Tech and didn't want any inside Hogwarts. That would explain why we're still forced to use parchment and quills too. Tradition is fine but quills? Really?"

"There's got to be a way to test this."

"If there is, I'm sure you'll figure it out."

Hermione blinked at the table in front of her, there seemed to be an eldritch monstrosity with hundreds of eyes staring at her. Harry was still jabbing his wand at it and each jab seemed to add a few more eyes to the creature.

"Harry, I think that it's got enough eyes - really."

"Should I add a few more tentacles then?"

"Only if you're planning on making me throw up. Why on earth are you making that thing anyway?"

"Just practicing."

"Practicing what? I don't think you're ever going to have to create something like this Harry, maybe you should just stick to matchsticks and needles for now."

"Nah, this is more fun. You should give it a try sometime."

"You are such a - such a BOY. Why can't you make something pretty?"

"Then I wouldn't be a boy, now would I Hermione?" snickered Harry, messing with Hermione's preconceptions of the wizarding world never failed to cheer him up.

.oo00oo.


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

* * *

A few weeks later Harry was sneaking down an underground passage while wearing his invisibility cloak. It was a chilly Friday night and he found himself shivering both from the cold and in anticipation. He reached the end and entered very disordered, dusty room. Paper was peeling from the walls; there were stains all over the floor; every piece of furniture was broken as though somebody had smashed it. The windows were all boarded-up. He was in the Shrieking Shack where Sirius and Quirrell were waiting for him.

"Finally" exclaimed Sirius, "I thought you'd never get here."

"Sorry, Filch was creeping about and I had to take the long way around to avoid him."

"Anyway, things are all set up with the Goblins, late tomorrow evening they'll be sending a message to Fudge that they're raising the interest rates on all Ministry loans" said Sirius.

"Are we certain that this will draw Dumbledore away from Hogwarts?" asked Quirrell.

"Of course it will, the first thing that Fudge will do is panic and call an emergency meeting of the Wizengamot. Dumbledore has to show up for that" said Sirius.

"So how much did this cost us?" asked Harry.

"Surprisingly enough, it didn't cost us a knut. The Goblins were only too happy to stick it to the Ministry."

"Excellent" chorused Harry and Quirrell.

"So nothing left to do but wait for tomorrow night. I'll have to be at the Ministry as well, so are you absolutely certain you're up to handling things at Hogwarts on your own?" Sirius asked Quirrell.

"I am more than capable Mr. Black."

"And Harry? Promise me you're going to stick to the plan. You are going to be in your dorm, right?"

"Yes, Yes I promise. I still think I should be somewhere closer to the Professor though. Just in case something goes wrong."

"No, you will be safely ensconced in your dorm. There will be no further discussion on this" snapped Quirrell.

"Fine, fine" muttered Harry.

"Don't be like that Harry, you have an important part to play as well."

"Yeah, cause watching a map and keeping the Professor informed is so exciting, risky even. Why I don't know if my poor heart can take that much excitement" grumbled Harry, rolling his eyes at the over protective attitude of the two men.

"Do I have to make you take a wizards oath?" snapped Sirius.

"Nah, it's fine Sirius, I already promised didn't I?"

"Now since we are all here I think it's time we did something about that scar as we have discussed" said Quirrell. "Are you ready Harry?"

"As ready as I'll ever be I guess."

"Good. Now I will need you to be absolutely still while I do this so I'm going to have to immobilize you" said Quirrell. He then proceeded to transfigure a few pieces of broken down furniture into something that looked like a hospital bed. He also produced a cage that had a little white mouse in and set it down next to the bed.

Harry grimaced at the site of the mouse - "Do we really have to kill that?"

"Perhaps not, but it would be an indicator that the curse has been successfully transferred. Now if you would kindly get into the bed."

Harry climbed into the bed and Quirrell waved his wand at the bed again. Straps rose out of the bed and entwined themselves around Harry's limbs. The pillow swelled and rose around Harry's head holding it firmly in place.

"Is this really necessary?" said Sirius.

"I believe so. His scar already causes him pain whenever we are near. Removing it might be even more painful. If he flails around during the procedure it would be distracting and I cannot have that. All my focus must be on the removal of the curse." Quirrell then transfigured another piece of rubbish into a smooth stick padded with layers of cloth.

"Here Harry, put this in your mouth and bite down upon it, it will help with the pain" ordered Quirrell.

"Bite down on a stick! Is that the best you can do? Shouldn't we be giving him some pain relieving potions or something" said Sirius.

"I have those as well, unfortunately I cannot give them to him until after the procedure. We cannot have any other magic working upon him during this" said Quirrell.

"I see" said an extremely worried looking Sirius.

"Well, then if you're ready then we shall begin. Harry if at any point the pain gets too much to bear signal us by slapping your hand against the side of the bed. Is your hand free enough to do that?" Harry tapped his knuckles against the side of the bed. "Yes, that's good. All right then, let us give this our best shot."

Quirrel limbered up a bit, bouncing on his toes as if he was preparing for a fight then pointed his wand straight at Harry's head and said - "_Praemonstro_."

A blue beam of light shot from Quirrell's wand and hit Harry's head which immediately started glowing the sickly green of the killing curse. Harry convulsed upon the bed, his teeth clamping down upon the stick as waves of pain swept forth from his forehead. The green glow was slowly getting brighter and brighter and Quirrell was gritting his teeth and trembling from the effort when it coalesced suddenly into a bright green ball which slowly rose from Harry's forehead.

Tendrils of green were still leaching back into Harry but as Quirrell forced the ball to move away from Harry they snapped off one by one until there was nothing connecting the green ball with Harry. Harry went limp upon the bed as Quirrell swept his wand around to point at the mouse which let out a loud squeak as the green ball blasted into it. The mouse shuddered once and was still. Quirrell collapsed onto the floor of the shack, breathing heavily as if he had just run a marathon.

"Harry, Harry, are you okay? Speak to me" shouted Sirius as he rushed to the side of the bed.

Harry spat the stick out of his mouth. "Damn, that hurt" he whispered hoarsely. "Could you get me out of these straps?"

Quirrell flicked his wand at the bed and the straps dissolved into nothingness. He was still kneeling upon the floor.

"Help me up Black, that was... tiring. Here give Harry this" said Quirrell, as he handed a vial of potion to Sirius.

"Don't think I need it actually, the pain is already fading away. In fact - I'm starting to feel incredible, all the pain has gone" said an ecstatic Harry as he got off the bed.

"Let me have a look at it" said Quirrell as Sirius hauled him to his feet. He waved his wand at Harry's head. "Excellent, I can no longer sense any trace of my magic within you. It seems to have worked."

"Hmm, looks like your scar has faded a bit as well" said Sirius as he hurriedly inspected Harry. "Better keep your hair brushed over it. Don't want anyone to start wondering why it's no longer so prominent."

"Well, since you don't seem to need the pain relieving potion, I could probably do with it" said Quirrell, quickly proceeding to down the potion in one gulp.

"Aah, that's better. I could do with some Pepper-Up as well, but I think it would be better to get a goods night sleep. Harry could you please check your map, I think it would be best if we headed back to the castle. Black, I am too tired to do anything right now, so could you clean up the place and remove any traces of our being here?"

"Yes, I'll take care of it. Are you sure you're okay? You look incredibly worn out. Should we postpone tomorrow's plan?" said Sirius.

"No-No I will be right as rain by the morning. We will go forward as planned. Now if you don't mind I really must be going" said Quirrell.

Quirrell disappeared as he apparated away to make his way back to the castle from the Hogsmeade path.

"Do you think he'll be able to handle things tomorrow?" asked Sirius.

"I'm sure he will, as long as nothing unexpected occurs. I'll best be off now as well, it's getting late" said Harry

"Harry wait a minute, I need to talk to you about tomorrow" said Sirius.

"What about?"

"It's that idea you had about using the mirrors as well. I don't like it Harry. You were only supposed to use the map not... tomorrow is going to be... difficult. I know you want to be involved and you have every right to be but I'd really prefer it if you just went to bed early and left it to Quirrell. I don't want you to see what happens tomorrow. It-It's going to be... messy and-and bloody as all hell and... sod it all Harry - Can't you just leave it to us?"

"No Sirius, I need to see this through, I helped plan it and it would be cowardly is the word I guess for me not to see the results. Don't worry I can handle it. Now I really have to get going" said Harry as he checked his map and proceeded to hurry back down the underground passage.

oo00oo

It was late at night the next day and Harry was sitting on his bed with the curtains drawn. He had placed every single silencing and privacy charm he knew upon his bed. In addition he had placed a subtle sleeping charm upon each of his dorm-mates. Nothing short of a bucket of water would wake them now. In front of him was the Marauder's Map and several of the Charmed Mirrors. One was linked to matching mirrors carried by Sirius and Quirrell. It was not showing any images as both of them had placed them inside their robes, however Harry could clearly hear sounds coming through from the two mirrors. On the other end the two wizards were listening in through tiny enchanted spheres which had been shoved into their ear canals. Two other mirrors currently showed differing views of the Hogwarts grounds. Harry had gotten Dobby to place tiny mirrors in strategic positions around Hogwarts and they were busily transmitting away. Sirius was at the Ministry and he had already informed them that Fudge had called the emergency session of the Wizengamot, now Harry was anxiously watching the tiny dot labeled Dumbledore that was still in the Headmasters Office. He saw the tiny dot move towards the fireplace and suddenly disappear. A few minutes later a buzz sounded from Sirius's mirror signaling them that Dumbledore had reached the Ministry.

"Snape's still in the dungeon Professor, looks like he's sitting at his desk in the potions classroom."

Quirrell did not bother to reply, instead Harry saw Quirrell moving towards the potions classroom and step inside. He heard a thump over the mirror as Quirrell stunned Snape. A few seconds later the dot labeled Snape was following Quirrell out the door. Quirrell had wrapped him up in Harry's invisibility cloak and was now levitating him towards the Hogwarts entrance doors. Harry followed their progress through the halls of Hogwarts. Luckily no one else was around at the time so Quirrell made excellent time to the doors. He opened the door and levitated Snape out and laid him out in the grass before digging his wand into the dark mark on the man's arm. The mark flared and darkened into a vivid red tattoo as Lord Voldemort sent forth his call for his Death Eaters to join him.

Harry quickly zoomed out of the map until it showed the entirety of the Hogwarts grounds as well as some of the surrounding area. He expected that it would take a few minutes before the Death Eaters started showing up. Those were among the longest moments of Harry's life. The seconds ticked by with agonizing slowness. He was terrified that one of the other teachers would come across Quirrell standing at the entrance even though Quirrell had set up repelling wards that would divert anyone heading that way.

Then with a shocking suddenness dots started appearing just outside the Hogwarts gates. He zoomed in and saw the names of Avery, Malfoy, Macnair, Crabbe, Goyle, Nott, Amycus and Alecta Carrow, Yaxley and a few others he did not recognise appear. The dots started moving towards the gates. Harry held his breath, people always said that Hogwarts was the safest place in Britain. That its wards would keep out any enemy. He did not believe that they were currently configured to keep out Death Eaters as not only was Snape a member of the staff but Lucius Malfoy was on the Board of Governors and would have been keyed into the wards regardless. However there was always the slim chance that Dumbledore had tightened down the wards before leaving the castle and if that was the case they would have to change their plans. Quirrell would have to go to the gates to meet the Death Eaters and that was not as good a strategic position as where he was currently situated. The point became moot however as the dots continued to move through the gates onto the Hogwarts grounds completely unimpeded.

"We've got incoming at the gates Professor, Looks like Dumbledore didn't change the wards after all. Trust the old goat to be as incompetent as always" said Harry to Quirrell over the mirrors. Quirrell did not reply, he simply tapped his mirror once which caused it to buzz on Harry's end. Harry continued to watch on his map and soon he could see the Death Eaters on his surveillance mirrors as well. They were dressed up in their usual outfits with the black hoods and the snake like masks. Foolishly enough they were bunched up in a way that was almost perfect for Quirrell.

oo00oo

Lucious Malfoy was confused. For the first time in a decade he had felt his master's mark burn upon his arm. He had been ecstatic, finally after these many long dark years of pandering to fools like Cornelius Fudge - his master was back. Soon they would put all those muggle loving fools in their proper place - at the feet of the purebloods, serving their betters. He rushed to answer his summons and had been shocked to see that he had been called to Hogwarts. Hogwarts - The stronghold of Dumbledore. Why had Lord Voldemort called him here? Unfortunately the wards around Hogwarts prevented apparation so he and the others had been forced to materialise outside the Hogwarts grounds and were now rushing on foot to where their master should be. However they were now almost at the place and he still could not see his Master anywhere. Where was Lord Voldemort? There was only one person visible and it seemed to be that ineffectual fellow who used to teach Muggle-Studies. What was his name? Monk something, no-no not Monk but it was definitely something to do with some sort of rodent. Marmot? Beaver? No - Squirrel, that was that Squirrel fellow. Why was he here? Where was his master? He turned to his fellow Death Eaters and was about to order one of them to subdue that Squirrel fellow so that he could question him when out of the corner of his eye he suddenly saw a flash of light leap forth from the wand of the former teacher of Muggle-Studies. That was the last thing he ever saw.

oo00oo

On his map, Harry saw the group of dots denoting the Death Eaters suddenly bloom and expand. All the dots seemed to jump out from a central point. As Harry continued to look at the map his brain finally started filling in on what he was seeing. Quirrell had fired off an immensely powerful bombardment curse. This had landed right in the middle of the Death Eaters blowing them apart like so much confetti. As Harry looked at the map, dots were already fading out as the people they represented ceased to exist. He stared at his mirrors where he saw Quirrell standing tall, his body aglow with power as spell after spell burst forth from his wand. He had never seen anyone cast so many spells so quickly. Burst of light were flashing out of Quirrell's wand and where they landed, people were being torn apart. He saw an arm fly from Goyle's body as the rest of him was propelled in the opposite direction by a powerful _reducto_. It seemed longer but in reality barely any seconds had passed before it was all over. Harry blinked at the map, there was only one single Death Eater left alive on it. He switched to the mirrors where he saw that Quirrell was holding Nott under the imperius curse. Nott raised his arm and let loose with a barrage of reductor curses. They hit all around Quirrell, scorching and shattering the stone around the Hogwarts doors but none of them came even close to hitting the turbaned professor. Quirrell had Nott fire off a few more barrages before killing him with a single reductor to the chest. Quirrell then levitated Snape to lie amongst his former comrades. He placed Snape's wand in his hand then blasted it with a low powered reductor curse shattering the wand and a few of Snape's fingers. He then hit Snape with another curse of some sort to the head and shot off a few more low powered spells at Snape's clothes ripping and burning them so that it looked like Snape had been right there in the middle of the attack.

"Professor it looks like the noise has alerted the other teachers, you need to disable your repelling wards now before they arrive" said Harry as he spotted McGonagall and Flitwick leaving their quarters and start hurrying towards the main doors. Quirrell grunted in response and headed to the nearest floo dispelling his wards as he went. He would be alerting the DMLE at once.

Harry continued to stare at his map, he saw Quirrell enter the hospital wing and pause before its fireplaces. He was clearly using the floo to contact the DMLE. Soon he saw Aurors suddenly bubble forth in increasing numbers from the fireplace. It looked like half the DMLE had decided to pay Hogwarts a visit. Harry sat back on his bed, he was covered in cold sweat. He suddenly leapt up and rushed into the toilet where he spewed forth the contents of his stomach. Part of him wished he had never decided to use the mirrors, but he had needed to see the results. He could not be one of those people like Dumbledore who saw others as abstract pawns to be discarded at a whim. If he decided that someone had to die and he if he was the one who instigated a plan that led to a persons death, the least he could do was watch it as it happened.

oo00oo


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

* * *

TRANSCRIPT OF DMLE INTERVIEW OF QUIRINUS QUIRRELL

Investigators: Amelia Bones and Frank Longbottom

Place of Interview: Hospital Wing, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Date: Oct 20th, 1991

Time: 7:00 AM

BONES: This is Amelia Bones conducting the interview with Professor Quirrell at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry regarding the events of the 19th of October 1991. Also present is Head Auror Frank Longbottom. Professor Quirrell, could you please state your name for the record?

QUIRRELL: My name is Quirinus Quirrell, I am currently the Professor for Defense Against the Dark Arts at Hogwarts. Before we begin, I feel I must apologise for not giving you my statement last night Madam Bones. Unfortunately after what happened I was in a bit of a state as you can imagine. I had to take a calming draught from Madam Pomfrey and that coupled with a slight case of magical exhaustion ... well Poppy tells me I passed out almost immediately.

BONES: That's quite all right Professor, I'm just glad to see you up and about today. I've had trained aurors collapse for much longer after a strenuous fight and from what I saw of the crime scene - that was quite a battle you had last night.

QUIRRELL: Yes, it was quite an eventful evening.

BONES: So to recap, last night you informed the DMLE that Hogwarts had been attacked by Death Eaters. When we arrived we found the corpses of several people and one stunned person. Could you take us through the sequence of events?

QUIRRELL: Well, I was just heading out the front doors of the castle when I saw a group of people dressed in Death Eater robes heading towards me.

LONGBOTTOM: Why were you leaving the castle grounds at such a late hour?

QUIRRELL: I was just going to have a walk before I went to bed.

LONGBOTTOM: Do you make it a habit to take these late night walks?

QUIRRELL: Yes, I occasionally feel the need for a cigarette and I do not like to smoke inside the castle.

LONGBOTTOM: Why not?

QUIRRELL: The smell tends to linger if I smoke inside my rooms and I do not like to do it anywhere else inside the castle in case a student might see me. It sets a bad example you know. So whenever I feel like a smoke I tend to do so outside where I am unlikely to be observed by any student.

LONGBOTTOM: I see, so you were headed out to smoke and you saw a group of Death Eaters. How did you know they were Death Eaters?

QUIRRELL: The robes and masks were a dead giveaway. I was too young to fight in the last war but I do remember how the Death Eaters looked like. We saw photos of them in the paper often enough. There is also the fact that they fired a reductor curse at me. Once they did that I had no choice but to retaliate in kind.

LONGBOTTOM: You could have attempted to stun them. Why did you choose to respond in a lethal manner?

QUIRRELL: Stun them? Surely you're joking Mr. Longbottom? Unfortunately I do not know any spell that can reliably stun a large group of people. If I had tried to stun them one by one, they would have definitely killed me. No, I had no choice. If they got past me the students inside the castle would have been at risk. As a teacher at this school I am responsible for ensuring my student's safety so I had to stop them from entering the castle. So I did the only thing I could, I fired a bombardment curse right at the center of the group. Luckily for me they were close together so most of them were taken out by that. The rest continued to fire curses at me but I managed to dodge them all as I finished the rest of them off with reductor curses.

BONES: Except for Snape?

QUIRRELL: Yes, he was with them but not dressed as a Death Eater. I did not know if he was a prisoner or working with them, so I threw a confundus charm at him, disarmed him with a low powered reducto to his hand and then stunned him.

LONGBOTTOM: Oh, he was with them all right. You might not know this Professor but Snape is a former Death Eater, just like all the rest of the scum we found littering the grounds last night. All of them - Malfoy, Yaxley, the Carrows - all of them had the Dark Mark on their arms. Unfortunately we could not question him last night. Your confundus charm seems to have been particularly strong. He was totally incoherent last night, didn't seem to know what was going on at all.

QUIRRELL: I see - that is rather unfortunate. I would have liked to know what he was doing with them. The man is a Professor at this school. For him to be involved in an attack upon the school, it is rather shocking.

BONES: Don't worry Professor, we will be questioning him again after he has recovered and we will get answers. So after you had dealt with the attackers what did you do?

QUIRRELL: I immediately rushed to the Hospital Wing which had the closest working floo. I contacted the DMLE and I believe you know the rest.

LONGBOTTOM: Professor, I must say that I find it hard to believe that you single-handedly defeated such a large group of Death Eaters. I doubt that many of the aurors that I know would have been able to do such a thing. How do you explain your unusual success?

QUIRRELL: Well for one I was in a slightly better strategic position than them. The doors of Hogwarts are slightly elevated over the drive and I used that to my advantage. As for the rest - I used to be the Muggle Studies professor, however since I had ambitions to take over the DADA position I took a sabbatical last year. I spent all of last year in intense training in Defense so that I would be able to adequately teach my students. I spent the entire year doing nothing but training and traveling around to gain experience. Obviously I was successful.

BONES: Yes, I would say you were. Did any of the attackers give any indication of why they were at the castle?

QUIRRELL: No, but if I had to guess they were probably after whatever Professor Dumbledore has hidden in the third floor corridor.

BONES: I'm sorry? What was that about the third floor corridor?

QUIRRELL: Are you joking Madam Bones? Surely you are aware that Professor Dumbledore has hidden an artifact of supposedly great value in the school?

BONES: No, I was not aware of that fact.

QUIRRELL: But I've sent six letters, four to the DMLE and two to the governors about the matter. I thought it was rather irresponsible of the DMLE to not investigate the matter but then I assumed that Professor Dumbledore must have obtained permission from the Ministry.

BONES: I am not aware of any letters. What exactly were you trying to inform us of?

QUIRRELL: Madam Bones, since the beginning of the school year the third floor corridor has been out of bounds. Professor Dumbledore has had something hidden there, supposedly because Hogwarts is the safest place for it. I have had severe reservations about his actions and I have sent several letters outlining my fears regarding the risk and danger to the students.

BONES: Risk? To the students?

QUIRRELL: Well I don't consider keeping a Cerberus in the school to be particularly safe. Nor do I think it prudent when the Headmaster of a school forces me to obtain a troll for additional protection. Hogwarts is supposed to be a school not a vault.

BONES: A Cerberus and a troll?

QUIRRELL: Those are just the ones I know of. The Headmaster had several of the teachers provide additional protections for whatever he has hidden. He forced me to obtain a troll and I believe he had Hagrid provide the Cerberus. I am not aware of what the other teachers have provided.

BONES: Frank, get another team down here. Have them start looking into the third floor corridor right away. You and I are going to go see Dumbledore and take him down to the Ministry for questioning. We have to get to the bottom of this. I can't believe the man, to keep a Cerberus in a school, in the same building as my niece.

LONGBOTTOM: And my son. How dare he put our children in danger. He'd better have a good answer for this Amelia. We need to investigate why we didn't receive Professor Quirrell's letters as well. Obviously someone has been tampering with the mail sent from this school.

BONES: I think that will be all we need from you Professor Quirrell, we will contact you if we need to ask any more questions about last night, thank you very much for your time. No doubt the Ministry will be issuing an official commendation for your actions in defense of this school but on a personal note I would like to thank you as well. My niece Susan is currently a first year and I thank you for keeping her safe last night.

QUIRRELL: Ah yes, Susan, she is an excellent student. Very attentive in class. So far she's gotten O's on nearly all her assignments. She needs to work on her grammar a bit but her knowledge of Defense is first rate. Your influence I assume. But there is no need to thank me Madam Bones, I was simply doing my duty.

LONGBOTTOM: What about Neville, how is he doing?

QUIRRELL: Neville is doing very well. An excellent work ethic from what I've seen. A mix of O's and E's on his assignments so far. He needs to work on his concentration and casting accuracy a bit but then nearly all the students do. He'll get there with some practice.

BONES: Well as much as we'd like to continue discussing how our children are doing in class, this is an official inquiry so we'd best save that for another time.

QUIRRELL: Of course Madam Bones, please feel free to contact me any time you want an update on your niece's progress. Of course that goes for you as well Mr. Longbottom.

BONES: End of interview with Professor Quirrell. Dicta Quill off.


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17

* * *

By the time Harry went down to breakfast, the great hall was already in an uproar, not one single member of the faculty was in sight and the place was swarming with aurors. Rumours were flying thick and fast. None of the students seemed to know exactly what had happened yet though some of the prevailing rumours were surprisingly accurate. The fact that Death Eaters had attacked and that some of them had been parents of Hogwarts students was being thrown around left and right but there were other rumours flying around as well. The strangest perhaps was that Dumbledore had gotten drunk and blown up the lawn while trying to create a fireworks display. According to that one he had then accidentally blown up the teachers who had come running out to see what had happened and now the entire staff was in St. Mungos. Harry snickered at the thought that some students actually believed that Dumbledore would do something so insane, but then half the school had always believed he was somewhat barmy. He remembered that even Percy, the boy who seemed to have a stick permanently stuck up his butt, had once described him as being a bit mad. He spotted Narcissa Malfoy standing near the entrance with an auror escort. He realised that she must be here to collect Draco and quickly checked his map to find Draco before heading towards the dungeons. He psyched himself up - This was a crucial moment for him and Draco. He had to be as convincing as possible or he was sure that ten years down the line he would find himself having to deal with Draco.

Harry caught up with a shell shocked Draco on his way out of the Dungeons with his trunk. Draco was a pale shadow of his usual self, with red rimmed puffy eyes.

"Are you leaving then Draco?" said Harry.

"Didn't you hear? My father was killed last night. He was murdered right here at Hogwarts while I was happily sleeping in my room."

"I heard, it's not like anyone is talking about anything else. The whole place is going crazy with the fact that Death Eaters attacked the school last night."

"My mother's pulling me out of Hogwarts, she doesn't want me to stay at the place my father was killed. Crabbe, Goyle and Nott may be leaving as well" whispered Draco in a monotone voice.

"God, I'm sorry to hear that Draco. I wanted to give you my condolences. I was very sorry to hear about your father."

"Why? Why would you care about him? A Death Eater. He attacked the school" sobbed Draco.

"Oh come on Draco, everyone knows your father was under the _Imperius_ curse during the last war."

"What?"

"Yeah, obviously the Death Eaters needed more people for their attack so they put your father under the _Imperius_ again."

"I-I don't know. Is that what you think happened?"

"Of course Draco, after all I'm sure your father loved you. Attacking the school would have put you in danger and your father - he would never have put you in danger. Right?"

"N-No he wouldn't have."

"Then that means he had to be under the _Imperius_. Obviously the Death Eaters had it in for him."

"But he-he supported them. He advocated the pureblood causes. Why would they..."

"Draco, come on, you can't think that way about your father. There's a big difference between being a supporter for the pureblood way of life and being a Death Eater. And don't forget the _Imperius_ is a particularly nasty curse. Not only does it rob you of your free will, but even after it's lifted people make excuses for why they acted the way they did. I've heard that victims can rationalise away their actions as something they really wanted to do. They come up with all sorts of excuses as to why they acted the way they did. I read about a case where a wizard used the _Imperius_ to make someone jump in a river and even after the curse was lifted the victim claimed that he just felt like a swim."

"So you're saying that whenever he went on about the mud... muggleborns he was..."

"Justifying his actions under the _Imperius_ of course."

"I - I don't know what to say. I have to get going, my mothers waiting for me in the hall."

"That's okay Draco, just wanted to let you know that I'm here for you. If you ever want anything, even if it's only someone to talk to just owl me. Okay?"

"Yes, I'll do that."

"Let me know if you're going to visit Sirius during the Christmas break. He's your mothers cousin so you'll probably visit at some point, right? I could meet you then."

"I don't know, they've never been very close."

"Yeah but at times like these family should come together. I'm sure that you'll probably be seeing a lot more of him now." Harry knew Sirius would be seeing a lot of the Malfoys. After all, Lucius had changed his will after Sirius's little visit back in August. The new will designated Sirius Black in his capacity as head of the Black family and Narcissa's cousin to take over management of the Malfoy estate until the time he felt that Draco was ready to manage things himself. Unless Draco grew up without a single trace of pureblood prejudice it was highly unlikely that Sirius would ever turn over management of the Malfoy estates to him.

"Tell you what - if your Mother isn't comfortable coming over I'll have him bring me over for a visit. If that's okay with you of course" said Harry.

"Y-Yes I'd like that."

With that Harry dropped Draco off near the entrance and watched him head off with his mother. Part of him wondered why he was even bothering with Draco. His other memories of the boy were of someone he absolutely detested. On the other hand THIS Draco had not done anything so far. This Draco had been quite affable with him and a small part of him felt guilty that the boy had lost his father due to his actions. He wondered whether the seed he had planted within Draco would be enough to sway him away from his father's path. "Probably not" he thought, "Oh well, Sirius will be keeping an eye on him, and with Sirius acting as the main male influence in the boy's life there's no telling how Draco will turn out."

oo00oo

Harry shook himself from the melancholy mood that meeting Draco had put him in and headed back to the great hall to eat his breakfast. He grabbed a seat next to Hermione.

"Hey Hermione, did you hear about Dumbledore going insane and blowing up the faculty?"

"Honestly Harry, how can you believe that? Neville's Dad, the Auror, already made an announcement."

"He did? What did he say?"

"Death Eaters attacked the school last night but were defeated by a Professor, he didn't say who. All the staff has been taken to the ministry to help the aurors in their investigations."

"Really? Help them in their investigations huh. Isn't that usually a euphemism for when the police arrest you and work you over with rubber hoses?"

"I really don't think they'd be doing that Harry."

"Hmmm, I think I preferred the Dumbledore going batshit story. Made much more sense. I think I smell a cover-up."

"Urghhhh..."

"Okay Miss Smarty Pants you tell me why they would arrest all the professors if the school was really attacked by Death Eaters."

"They haven't been arrested" shrieked Hermione.

"Of course not, they're just 'helping the police with their inquiries'" Harry made air quotes around the phrase further infuriating Hermione. "Oh my god, will you look at that" he said pointing behind Hermione.

Hermione turned around to see a team of aurors levitating a sleeping three-headed THING down the corridor. Some of the aurors seemed to be bleeding from what looked like large bite marks.

"What on earth is that?" she screamed, getting up to get a better look.

"Looks like a giant dog, with three heads. That's kinda cool" said Harry. "Wonder what they're doing with it?"

"That thing was in the castle? What on earth was it doing here?"

"See, looks like the story of Dumbledore going batshit insane wasn't that far off. I mean if he had that kind of thing in a school full of kids..." said Harry.

A stunned Hermione could not come up with any kind of rebuttal as she saw the aurors carefully levitate the sleeping monster out the front doors of Hogwarts.

oo00oo

Kingsley Shacklebolt hurried up to where Frank Longbottom was sitting in the Great Hall.

"Got something to tell me Kingsley."

"Yes sir, checked out the owlery like you said. We found a a couple of very interesting things."

"Go on."

"It seems that theres a ward around the owlery that affects ever letter sent out from the school. All the owls were charmed as well."

"What does it do?"

"It seems to tag each letter sent out with a selective notice-me-not charm. Basically if any letter contains certain words or phrases like three headed dog, cerberus, third floor corridor, danger etcetera then the recipient will ignore those sentences totally."

"So if someone were to send a letter warning that the school children were in danger due to a three headed dog in the third floor corridor, then the letter will be totally ignored?"

"Yes, if the letter contains some other content then the reader will focus only on that, but if the letter only talked about the Cerberus or the third floor corridor then the entire letter would be ignored."

"Then the letter sorters at the ministry would probably have just binned the letter, thinking it's a blank letter."

"Yes."

"Could you determine who cast the ward."

"Unfortunately we could not isolate the magical signature."

"Damn, so we can't pin it on Dumbledore."

"Sorry Sir."

"Not your fault Kingsley, just dispel that ward and make sure all your findings are documented properly."

"Right away Sir" said Kingsley before hurrying off to do just that.

oo00oo

Severus Snape was in a great deal of pain. He could not understand what had happened, he had been in his classroom grading assignments and then the next thing he knew he was being woken up in the Hospital Wing surrounded by aurors. Every single nerve in his wand hand seemed to be on fire. The thrice damned aurors had not even let Poppy finish healing his hand before roughly dragging him to the Ministry and tossing him in a holding cell. His mind still did not seem to have recovered from whatever had happened and he found it incredibly difficult to string together a coherent thought or sentence. All he knew was that somehow he had been injured and had been arrested for being a Death Eater. Why would they arrest him NOW? It had been a decade since he had been a part of Voldemort's circle. Dumbledore had vouched for him. Why was he in a cell? He wished his mind would clear. He wished his damn hand would stop paining. Perhaps he should just sleep. Yes, sleep. No doubt some rest would help him heal. When he awoke this would all make sense. Dumbledore would come for him. Till then he would sleep.

oo00oo

Dumbledore was finding it exceedingly difficult to keep a hold of his kindly Grandfather persona. Amelia Bones and Frank Longbottom had insisted on dragging him to the ministry and had grilled him for an hour before leaving him to wait. Harping on about danger to the students. Couldn't they understand that he did what he had to do for the Greater Good. After all, what was more important - the safety of a few snot nosed brats or the well being of the entire wizarding world? He wished he could just hex the two of them to kingdom come and obliviate them of the events of last night. Unfortunately by the time he got back to Hogwarts there had been far too many aurors there to safely obliviate. Damn Quirrell, why did he have to inform the DMLE? The incompetent fool should have contacted him first. How dare he go to the DMLE? The first thing he was going to do when he was finished here was fire that turbaned fool and make sure that he would never be able to find another job. But first he would make him suffer. Yes, he would make that fool realise that no one comes in the way of Albus Dumbledore's plans. Certainly not someone like Quirrell. So he got lucky facing a couple of Death Eaters, he would soon learn the difference between scum like them and Albus Dumbledore. And when he was done with Quirrell he would turn his attention to Bones and Longbottom. How dare they presume to question him? He was Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the ICW. He would weather this little storm in a tea cup and then he would show them the full meaning of what it meant to trifle with him. Yes, Yes he would. He plastered a smile on his face and beamed at Amelia Bones who had just walked in.

"I trust that you have sorted out matters by now Amelia. If you have any more questions you can contact me at Hogwarts. Now I must insist on heading back to the school. There are matters there that require my attention urgently."

"Sorry Albus, I have to keep you here for just a little while longer. I've gotten the preliminary reports about the third floor corridor and I'm afraid you're going to have to answer some questions about them."

"But of course Amelia, what did you want to know?"

"Start with how you planned on keeping the students safe from the Cerberus? Didn't you think it was dangerous keeping a beast like that in a school full of children?"

"Come now Amelia, there was no danger. Do you really think I would endanger my students? All the students were warned on the first day of school to stay away from the third floor corridor."

"Was that the extent of your precautions? A simple warning to stay away."

"The students know better than to disregard my orders Amelia. What need was there for anything else?"

"I see" said a grim Amelia Bones, already deciding that this insanely reckless man was going to get the full force of the DMLE thrown at him. It would be a cold day in hell before Albus Dumbledore would ever set foot in Hogwarts again. Not while she had a single breath left in her body.

"Did you ever consider the fact that a student might get lost and stumble across the corridor by accident?"

"The door was locked Amelia."

"My aurors report that they could open it with a simple _alohomora_. That's a first year charm Albus. Hell it's such a simple charm that I learnt it before I even attended Hogwarts."

"Hagrid had to be able to visit Fluffy every day. To feed and care for him. We could not use stronger security measures on the door as he is unable to perform magic."

"I see, and why wasn't there a warning sign? After all if a student did get lost how were they to know that they were not supposed to open the door?"

"The students learn to find their way around Hogwarts soon enough Amelia, what are the chances that one would get lost."

"It has been a long time since you were a first year, hasn't it Albus? Unfortunately I remember only too well how easy it was to get lost back in First Year. I must have gotten lost dozens of times in the first few months at Hogwarts."

"That may have been something I overlooked. However no student has entered that corridor so I fail to see what the problem is."

Amelia had to restrain herself from grabbing a chair and battering the man sitting across her to death.

"Very well, Albus. Please wait, I'll be back in a minute or two."

With that Amelia Bones left the room. She returned a few minutes later with a stack of paperwork.

"Albus Dumbledore, I am officially informing you that there is to be a full hearing on this matter. Please sign these papers to acknowledge that you have received the notification."

"Is this really necessary Amelia? I believe I have sufficiently explained matters."

"I believe it is, if you believe that your explanations are sufficient then you have nothing to fear from a hearing. Kindly sign the papers."

"Very well Amelia." Dumbledore looked at the papers, signing the acknowledgment form for the hearing. Then he looked at the second set of papers and paused.

"What is this Amelia?"

"That is a restraining order. Until the hearing is concluded you are hereby banned from the Hogwarts grounds. You will be fitted with a Ministry tracking charm to enforce your compliance. At this time I must remind you that breaking the restraining order is punishable by six months in Azkaban. Interfering with a Ministry tracking charm or circumventing it in any way is punishable by a year in Azkaban. Kindly sign the paper to acknowledge that you have been informed of these facts."

Dumbledore's facade finally cracked a bit. He glowered angrily at Amelia.

"I don't believe this Amelia. How on earth do you justify this? I am the Headmaster of Hogwarts and you are treating me like a common criminal. How will I be able to carry out my duties if I am not able to enter the grounds?" shouted Dumbledore.

"Minerva can take over for you. In any case this is only until the hearing is concluded. I can do you a favour and schedule it within a week. Until then you will just have to stay away from Hogwarts. If you need to retrieve any personal items you may give a list to one of my aurors. They will fetch them for you."

Dumbledore signed the papers, shoved them back at Amelia and stalked from the room in a temper. He decided that Amelia Bones would go to the top of his list for payback. By the time he was done with her she would be swabbing toilets in the ministry. No, she wouldn't even be able to get a job swabbing toilets. He would ruin her. Yes, Yes he would. He would show her exactly what it meant to go against him.

oo00oo


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

* * *

Sirius Black entered the Ministry and made his way to Cornelius Fudge's office. He had Fudge's secretary announce him and a moment later he was being ushered into the Minister's Office.

"Ahh Sirius, so good to see you, what can I do for you?" said Fudge.

"Hello Minister, you're looking well, better than I expected, after all - I heard about your Under secretary. Quite unfortunate that."

"Yes, that was quite a surprise. I would never have expected it of Dolores."

"Yes, most surprising indeed. Does anyone know what happened?"

"No, not really. They tell me the stress of her position must have gotten to her and made her snap. I guess not everyone can handle the pressures of a job in the Ministry" said Fudge pompously, implying by his tone that he could more than handle anything that the Ministry threw at him.

"Is it true that she...?"

"Went insane and used a blood quill to scrawl obscenities all over the walls of her office until she died from blood loss. Unfortunately, yes."

"That has to be one of the strangest ways to commit suicide that I have ever heard off. What was she doing with a blood quill anyway? I wouldn't imagine that there would be much use for something like that at the Ministry."

"Who knows? The quill was part of a set that belonged to her. Why she had it is unfortunately something only she could have answered" said Fudge.

"Still at least with all the attention that this situation with Dumbledore is getting, no one is asking too many questions about her. Otherwise it could have been quite the scandal."

"Yes, Dumbledore, that's another thing that we could have done without. Honestly, what was that man thinking?" grumbled Fudge.

"That was the other matter that I hoped to discuss with you."

"Oh come now, Sirius. Don't start with that. I've had more people than I can count in here telling me I have to do something to protect that man. I'll tell you what I've told them - I cannot and will not push this under the rug. Amelia has made that impossible. I cannot throw out the case against him unless I am willing to fire Amelia and I cannot do that with all the support she has in the Ministry. Surely you can see that? But don't worry, I'm sure he'll provide an adequate defence at his hearing and I'm sure he'll be found innocent so there is no need for you to worry at all."

"I really wasn't about to suggest that you dismiss the case."

"No?"

"No, matters have progressed too far for it to be quietly swept under the rug. We have to have a public hearing. Have you seen the headlines this matter has been getting all week? Rita Skeeter has been braying for his blood and the public isn't far behind. Child endangerment is an issue that everyone has extremely strong feelings for. Every parent in the country is going to be judging us. No - we have to be seen to investigate this matter most thoroughly" said Sirius.

"Yes, that's exactly what I've been saying all along" said Fudge.

"The only problem is that no matter what we do there will still be people who will criticise us. In her latest column Rita Skeeter has said that she doubts the Ministry will ever move against Dumbledore. We must fight this perception Cornelius. We cannot be seen as people willing to let things slide just because of the stature of the accused" said Sirius.

"No – No, of course not. I totally agree, but how do we handle this. After all I'm sure Dumbledore will be found innocent. The man is far too cunning to let something like this bring him down."

"Yes, the problem is whether we find him guilty or innocent there will be people who say that we only ruled that way because of who he is. Find him guilty and they will say his political enemies have orchestrated this. Find him innocent and they will say that of course we are too much in Dumbledore's pocket to ever go against him."

"So we're damned either way?" asked Fudge in a mournful tone. "Perhaps we should have a little chat with the Prophet's managers. It shouldn't be too difficult to get them to report the news the way we want."

"No Cornelius, muzzling the press is at best a short term solution and it's too late for that now anyway - People are already thinking along those lines, not to mention the fact that the international papers have started to pick up the story as well. We can't muzzle all of them. I do have a solution though. I propose that at the hearing you ask each member of the Wizengamot to take a wizard's oath on their magic that they will try this case purely on its merits without any consideration of the accused's history or stature. Ask each of them to swear to strictly abide by the laws of the land in this case."

"The Wizengamot is not likely to agree to that Sirius."

"If they are asked to swear publicly by you Cornelius, then they will have no choice. What will their options be? If they don't agree to swear then they're publicly admitting that they do not intend to be unbiased in this case. The press will drag them over the coals in that case."

"Hmmm, your idea does have merit. After all if we all take this oath then the press cannot criticise us at all, no matter what the outcome of this case."

"Precisely" said Sirius, outwardly calm but inside he was ecstatic. Fudge had bought it hook line and sinker. Take that Dumbledore. "I've taken the liberty to write out a suitable oath that I believe should suffice to ward off any accusations of bias or favouritism" said Sirius as he handed over a piece of parchment to Fudge.

oo00oo

A supremely confident Dumbledore strode serenely into the courtroom that was absolutely packed with spectators and reporters. He was wearing long midnight-blue robes and a perfectly calm expression. He had spent his week away from Hogwarts extremely productively, calling in all the favours and political capital he possessed. More than half the Wizengamot was firmly in his pocket and he was absolutely certain that the case would be dismissed. He paused to give Amelia Bones a glare. There she sat like she owned the place. Well, he would soon disabuse her of that notion. For now though he put on his most genial smile and beamed at all the sitting members.

Harry sat on his bed with the curtains drawn around him, once again watching events on one of his communication mirrors. He wished that he could have been in the courtroom but Sirius had refused to allow it. This was the next best thing he guessed, this mirror had been set up by Sirius and Dobby to give him a perfect bird's eye view of the entire court. Luckily the hearing was happening on a Saturday otherwise he'd have had to come up with an excuse for missing class. As it was he had been forced to pretend to have a headache and tell his friends that he wanted to go have a lie down. Luckily for him they had not dragged him off to the Hospital Wing although Hermione had looked like she was pretty close to doing just that. He looked at the members of the Wizengamot, there were about fifty of them all wearing plum coloured robes with an elaborately worked silver W on the left-hand side of the chest. In the very middle of the front row sat Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic. He saw Amelia Bones sitting on Fudge's left looking very forbidding in her monocle and short grey hair. On Fudge's right sat Sirius looking every inch the powerful pureblood that ordinarily he would never act like.

"Good Morning Ladies and Gentleman of the Wizengamot" greeted Dumbledore taking out his wand and giving a little flick at the normal chair for the accused, the arms of which were covered in chains, changing it into a squashy chintz armchair. The members of the Wizengamot were muttering. All eyes were now on Dumbledore. Some looked annoyed, others slightly frightened; two elderly witches in the back row, however, raised their hands and waved in welcome. Dumbledore sat down; put the tips of his long fingers together and surveyed Fudge over them with an expression of polite interest. The Wizengamot was still muttering and fidgeting restlessly; only when Fudge spoke again did they settle down.

"Very well," said Fudge. "The accused being present — let us begin. Criminal Hearing of the twenty-sixth of October 1991" said Fudge in a ringing voice, "Into the charges of child endangerment by Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot and Supreme Mugwump of the ICW, resident at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, Scotland."

"Interrogators: Cornelius Oswald Fudge, Minister for Magic; Amelia Susan Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement; Court Scribe, Kingsley Shacklebolt -"

"Acting as counsel for himself, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore" announced Dumbledore.

"Yes," said Fudge again, shuffling his notes. "Well, then. So. The charges. Yes."

He extricated a piece of parchment from the pile before him, took a deep breath, and read out, "The charges against the accused are as follows: That he did knowingly, deliberately and in full awareness of his actions did endanger the lives of the children entrusted into his care as Headmaster of Hogwarts by keeping several dangerous animals and artifacts within the confines of said Institute without taking adequate safety precautions which constitutes an offence under Paragaraph F, Section 37 of the Child Protection Act of 1885. How does the accused plead?"

"Not guilty" announced Dumbledore.

The muttering in the crowd rose to a roar and Fudge had to resort to a sonorous charm to order them to be quiet before the crowd settled down.

"Yes, Well then" he started in a slightly nervous tone before his voice gained strength again. "Due to the highly emotional nature of the charges and the status of the accused I am going to have to order all members of the Wizengamot to take a magically binding oath to try this case without any bias" announced Fudge.

Dumbledore was shocked out of his complacency. A magically binding oath like that might negate all the work he had done to sway the members of the Wizengamot to his side. He had to stop this so he stood up and declared - "Come now Cornelius, I hardly think that such a measure is required. I have full faith in all of the members sitting here today and have no doubt in my mind that they will be scrupulously fair and unbiased in this matter."

"I will remind you Albus that I am in charge of this court, not you. I happen to think that this is a very necessary measure to counter any charges of bias that are bound to be levelled at this court."

"I second the Minister's motion and fully agree that such a measure is called for" announced Amelia Bones in a booming voice cutting off the protests that some of the Wizengamot members were making.

"Very well then, I shall be the first to take the oath" announced Fudge in a pompous tone as he took out his wand and raised it in his right hand. "I, Cornelius Fudge, Minister of Magic, do solemnly swear upon my magic that I shall be absolutely fair and unbiased during this hearing against Albus Dumbledore, I shall try and sentence this case purely upon its merits and evidence presented to the court. I shall strictly follow the laws of the land without letting the status and history of the accused have any bearing whatsoever upon the outcome of the case. So mote it be."

The court was in an uproar and Dumbledore was absolutely shocked. He had not expected this at all. Fudge was closely followed by Amelia Bones and then one by one the rest of the Wizengamot followed them in taking the oath. Some of them looked extremely reluctant but they all seemed to realise that they had been backed into a corner by Fudge and all took the oath.

"Good, now that's that done, let us continue with this case. The court calls upon Frank Longbottom, Head Auror of the DMLE to present the evidence gathered at Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry."

The next few hours went by slowly as the evidence against Dumbledore was presented. Harry was highly amused at the looks of shock and outrage when pictures of the Cerberus were displayed. The magical photographs clearly showed the ferocity of the creature as it lunged against the bars of a cage, all three heads snapping and biting in unison. This was soon followed by pictures of Devil's Snare, the flying keys, the chessboard and the troll. Snape's potions didn't get much of a response, being relatively tame, although a few members did say that they thought that leaving bottles of poison lying around was a clear case of child endangerment just on its own. Surprisingly enough one of the members seemed to be incredibly outraged when the Mirror of Erised was brought up; he seemed even more incensed than he had been upon seeing the photographs of the Cerberus.

"Am I hearing this correctly Albus?" snapped Tiberius Ogden. "You had the mirror in an UNLOCKED room without any protections upon it whatsoever?"

"It was only there temporarily, I had planned on moving it very soon as it was to be used as the last line of defence for the stone" defended Dumbledore.

"That is no excuse Albus, at least the other objects were behind a locked door, inadequate protection as that might have been, but to have the mirror just kept in an unused room. What would you have done if a child had stumbled across it Albus? Men - grown men have wasted away before it, entranced by what they have seen, or been driven mad, not knowing if what it shows is real or even possible. For you to just keep it out in the open where any child could come across it is SHOCKING."

"Come now Tiberius, it is hardly more shocking than the Headmaster of the school announcing to the entire school on the very first day that there is something dangerous on the third floor" said Sirius. "After all, I remember what my friends and I were like in back in our school days. Such an announcement would have drawn us like moths to a flame. I doubt we would have even bothered to unpack before heading there to find exactly what was making the corridor so dangerous."

"Not everyone is as reckless or impulsive as you Black" snapped Dumbledore. "My students know better than to disregard my orders."

"Really?" drawled Sirius, "I draw your attention to the transcripts of the student interviews taken at your school. Let me see now, where was it? Aaah here it is, Members of the Wizengamot - kindly look at page seventy-five of the file entered with evidence no 25. During the interviews of the sixth year Gryffindor boys they admitted that a group of them had already checked out the third floor corridor and seen the Cerberus. It seems they were planning on holding a little contest. The only reason they hadn't already held it was that they were still debating whether the winner would be the one who got closest to the Cerberus or the one who managed to spend the longest amount of time within the room. What do you have to say to that Dumbledore?"

Dumbledore opened and closed his mouth like a fish several times before finally saying - "I - I admit that I may have underestimated some aspects of my students' characters but as you can see none of them got hurt so what they may or may not have planned to do is immaterial."

After a few more hours of this, Fudge finally announced an end to the prosecution's case. "Members of the Wizengamot, you have heard the evidence against the accused. At this time I will ask the accused if he has any evidence to present on his behalf."

"Members of the Wizengamot," started Dumbledore as he majestically rose to his feet, "to begin I would like to remind you that historically the Ministry has no rights to interfere with the running of Hogwarts and I was well within my rights as Headmaster of Hogwarts to act in the manner which I did. All that I did was for the Greater Good - The Greater Good, ladies and gentlemen. It was for the Greater Good that the Philosopher's Stone had to be kept safe. It was imperative that certain unsavoury elements of the wizarding world not get their hands upon such an item of incalculable power. As such it was well within my right to utilise the walls and wards of Hogwarts to keep this item safe. I took the danger upon myself to keep all of you safe. I have served the Wizarding World my entire life and I would do anything for the safety of the wizarding world - as I have proved time and time again in the past. I assure you that the students of Hogwart's were perfectly safe at all times and the presence of the Stone and its protections did not endanger them in anyway whatsoever. I respectfully submit myself to the will of the court. All I can do now is to await your verdict." Dumbledore put his fingertips together again and said no more.

Harry was surprised; he had half expected Dumbledore to announce that he was protecting the stone against Voldemort. But then he guessed that Dumbledore knew that the Wizengamot would not be very likely to believe that Voldemort had returned. The entire Wizengamot had fallen into urgent, whispered conversations. Then the whispering stopped.

"Those in favour of clearing the accused of all charges?" said Madam Bone's booming voice.

There were no hands in the air, not a one. Dumbledore stared in shock but before he could say anything Madam Bones had said - "And those in favour of conviction?"

Fudge raised his hand followed closely by Amelia Bones and Sirius. Slowly, one by one, every single member of the Wizengamot raised his hand. Fudge glanced around then lowered his hand. He took two deep breaths and then said in a nervous voice "Very well, very well ... convicted on all charges. Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore you have hereby been found guilty of the charge of child endangerment. As such as per the Child Protection Act of 1885 you are hereby sentenced to..."

"Excuse me Minister" interjected Sirius quickly. "I am sorry to interrupt but since we have all taken an oath to strictly uphold the law in this case I just wanted to check with you if you were aware of the current laws pertaining to the sentencing of the accused."

"Of course Mr. Black" said Fudge in a confused, slightly indignant tone. "This case falls under the Child Protection Act of 1885 which states that in cases of Child Endangerment where a child is put in danger but no injuries occur - in such a case the accused is sentenced to one month in Azkaban."

"Aaah, then I'm glad I interrupted or you, and all of us, might have been in danger of losing our magic."

"How so?" asked Tiberius Ogden in a worried tone.

"Well sir, while it is true that the case does fall under the Child Protection Act, the sentencing for the same also falls under the Mandatory Sentencing Act of 1986. As you might remember it was I, along with Madam Bones and others of the DMLE, who co-authored that law and as such I am a bit of an expert when it comes to that Act which lays out the mandatory punishments that are required for various offences against the law."

"And what does it say?" snapped Dumbledore.

"The Mandatory Sentencing act of 1986 does in fact impose a sentence of one month in Azkaban. However this is for one SINGLE count of Child Endangerment. According to Paragraph J, Section 259 of the said Act - when multiple children are endangered then each child shall constitute as a separate count of Child Endangerment and the guilty party will be subject to a month of imprisonment for each such count. A child is defined as anyone under the age of majority, that is - anyone under the age of seventeen" announced Sirius to a court that was shocked silent as the people in it slowly understood the ramifications.

"And we found Dumbledore guilty of endangering all the children in Hogwarts. How many children are currently attending?" asked Fudge in shock.

"Currently there are four hundred and fifty four students under the age of seventeen residing at Hogwarts" said Frank Longbottom.*

"That - that means ..." said Fudge.

"That means that Albus Dumbledore must be sentenced to four hundred and fifty-four counts of Child Endangerment which carries a sentence of four hundred and fifty-four months in Azkaban. I believe that works out to ..." Sirius scribbled out a quick calculation upon a piece of parchment, Merlin but he hated long division - "Thirty-seven years and ten months" said Sirius.

"But-but surely that's excessive" whimpered Fudge.

"Unfortunately Minister, our oaths leave us no choice but to follow the law, or risk losing our magic and the law states that Albus Dumbledore has to be sentenced to Thirty-seven Years and Ten Months in Azkaban. That is of course assuming that we decide to treat all the separate dangers, such as the Cerberus, Troll, Mirror etcetera as one count, instead of applying multiple charges for each" said Sirius.

Fudge looked around the court, absolutely shocked and terrified at what he was about to do, he visibly steeled himself before saying - "Very well, then I hereby sentence Albus Dumbledore to Thirty-seven years and ..."

"And I think that's quite enough Cornelius. Well — it's just that you seem to be labouring under the delusion that I am going to — what is the phrase? — _come quietly_. I am afraid I am not going to _come quietly_ at all, Cornelius. I have absolutely no intention of being sent to Azkaban. I could break out, of course — but what a waste of time, and frankly, I can think of a whole host of things I would rather be doing" said Dumbledore getting to his feet. A flash of gold suddenly blinded the people in the courtroom as Fawkes flamed into existence next to Dumbledore. Dumbledore reached swiftly to grasp the phoenix's long golden tail, but had to draw his hand back quickly, hissing in pain. Bars of fire had suddenly sprung around Fawkes imprisoning the phoenix in a fiery cage. Dumbledores hand was covered in burns and blisters where it had come too close to the bars. Fawkes squawked indignantly from within his cage.

"I'm sorry Albus, but did you think we were all incompetents? Did you assume we would not think to ward against your phoenix?" asked Madam Bones as the chair that Dumbledore had changed reverted back to its original form. The chains covering its arms sprang to life and wrapped around Dumbledore pulling him back down into the chair, binding him and his magic.

Fudge was purple with anger, he jumped to his feet and screamed at Dumbledore "How-how dare you show such disrespect to the Ministry and Wizengamot? I will not stand for this Dumbledore."

"Members of the Wizengamot, I feel that I must move that Albus Dumbledore be held in contempt of court and also charge him with attempting to escape from his lawful sentence. As you know - any escape attempt imposes the penalty of a further ten years in Azkaban and the forfeiture of all rights to appeal, pardon or parole" boomed Madam Bones in a voice of iron. "All in favour raise your hands now."

Every single member of the Wizengamot was absolutely incensed at Dumbledore's blatant escape attempt and once again the vote was unanimous against the soon to be former Chief Warlock.

"Aurors, you will take Mr. Dumbledore to Azkaban immediately. As he has proven himself to be an extremely high security risk he is to be incarcerated in the maximum security wing at Azkaban" ordered Madam Bones. "His Phoenix will not be released until such time as the wards of Azkaban are upgraded to keep it out."

Harry collapsed on his bed, the stress and tension that had pervaded his body ever since he entered Hogwarts finally leaving him. Thank god the anti-phoenix wards had worked, he had not wanted to do anything to hurt Fawkes and he was immensely grateful that Quirrell had known of an obscure ward that would prevent Phoenix travel without doing any permanent damage to the magnificent creature. He trusted Amelia and Sirius to make sure that Dumbledore would reach a cell in Azkaban without incident. He relaxed and let out a deep sigh - finally he felt a measure of peace and safety. The plan against Dumbledore had gone off flawlessly. He sighed again before getting up, he had to talk to his parents and let them know that they no longer had to worry about Dumbledore. He smiled at the thought of their reactions before pulling out the mirror that was the twin of the one that his parents had. One of these days he would figure out a way to combine mirrors. As things stood, if anyone ever saw all the different mirrors that he currently possessed - they would think he was the vainest boy in the entire country.

oo00oo

*I believe that Rowling once said that about a 1000 students attend Hogwarts. This number may not have been immediately obvious in the books and movies which showed far fewer pupils, but I think we can assume that since the books were largely written from Harry's POV then only those students with which he actually came in contact with would ever be mentioned. If we go strictly by the students mentioned in the books then most readers would come to a figure of about 40 students a year. This seems very low and while JKR did say that there are about a thousand students some of these students would have been over the age of seventeen, so I'm just going to make a wild guess at the number of underage students at Hogwarts.

This chapter contained some edited excerpts from Order of the Phoenix. Description of the Mirror of Erised was taken from the Philosopher's Stone. As to what happened to Dolores Umbridge, while I'm sure most of you will guess correctly, an explanation will be given or alluded to in one of the following chapters.

oo00oo


	19. Chapter 19

Chapter 19

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After all the excitement and controversy caused by Dumbledore's trial and conviction, the trial of Severus Snape was quite the anticlimax. It was a quiet subdued affair with hardly any spectators and just a single junior reporter from the Prophet. After all the trial was widely rumoured to be a foregone conclusion, the man was obviously guilty and no-one was expecting any surprises from the event. Due to Snape's personality he had no friends to come and give him support. Sirius was surprised that more people had not turned up to see the most hated professor in Hogwart's history get his just deserts though. It seemed that most people could not be bothered with the potion masters fate. Even from the Hogwart's staff only Minerva McGonagall had bothered to show up and she was probably there just to ascertain whether she would need to arrange for another potions professor.

Snape had been kept on a strict regime of flushing potions for the greater part of two weeks just on the off-chance that he might have developed a counter for veritaserum. Unfortunately for him this had resulted in him not being prescribed anydess potions to deal with his injuries and his time in the DMLE's holding cells had been quite painful.

Currently the members were annoyed at the lack of progress in the trial. They had been hoping for a quick confession and conviction but even when under the influence of veritaserum Snape had not confessed to any involvement with the attack on Hogwarts.

"It's obvious that the _confundus_ charm the accused was hit with during the battle has scrambled his memory so severely that it has worked almost like an _obliviate_. That can happen sometime when the target is weak-willed or if the spell was cast with a lot of power" announced Frank Longbottom.

"That is indeed unfortunate, without a confession I am not sure what we can find him guilty of. As things stand I believe the only crime we can charge him with is attempted robbery" said Tiberius Ogden.

"He was with a group of Death Eaters and apprehended during an attack on the school. I think we can do better than attempted robbery, don't you think?" asked Madam Bones.

"Unfortunately his wand was shattered when he was disarmed and so we have no evidence that he was attacking the school" said Tiberius Ogden. Tiberius had always been a great believer in the law and was extremely reluctant to convict anyone without ironclad evidence of their guilt.

"A charge of attempted robbery seems quite inadequate though" said Fudge. Ever since Dumbledore's conviction he had been lauded in the press as a great proponent for law and order. He had been basking in the praise and did not want to ruin his new image by letting someone like Snape off with a light sentence.

"He has been named a Death Eater before" said Sirius, "It was only Dumbledore's testimony that kept him out of Azkaban last time."

"Once again, that is not enough to warrant a stay in Azkaban. Due to various reasons simply being a Death Eater was never considered a crime. It is only the crimes that they actually commit that we can sentence them for" intoned Ogden.

"May I have the court's indulgence for a moment, due to Dumbledore the accused was never questioned about his activities in the last war and I would like to ask him a few questions pertaining to that period" said Sirius.

"I don't have any problems with that" said Fudge.

"Thank you Minister" said Sirius before turning to Snape who was still under the influence of veritaserum, "Severus Snape did you have any involvement whatsoever in the deaths of James and Lily Potter?"

"Yes," said Snape causing an immediate uproar in the Wizengamot. He did not elaborate further as veritaserum only compelled a person to answer truthfully to any questions posed. It did not give them the compulsion to elaborate on their answers.

"What exactly did you have to do with their deaths?" asked Sirius.

"I was the one who gave the Dark Lord the prophecy that caused him to target the Potters" said Snape.

"What is this prophecy he is talking about?" asked Fudge.

"That does not really matter at this time Minister, now if you don't mind I have only one more question to ask the accused."

"Very well, go on" said Fudge.

'This was it' thought Sirius. He and Harry had decided that this was the question that would seal Snape's fate. If he answered Yes, Sirius had promised to do what he could to minimise Snape's sentence. Any other answer and Sirius would do his best to throw him in the deepest pits of Azkaban.

"Severus Snape, do you regret the death of James Potter?" asked Sirius.

"No, I do not" answered Snape. If he been able to elaborate he might have explained how he hated the man, how he could not be expected to regret the death of a man he so reviled. He could have explained how much he deeply regretted causing Voldemort to target Lily - his childhood friend. Unfortunately for him he could not, and for that matter Sirius was well aware that Snape would have regretted Lily's death but was only interested to know if he had any regret for the murder of James and thus his fate was sealed.

"There you have it Ladies and Gentleman of the Wizengamot. Severus Snape gave an insane Dark Lord the information that caused him to target James Potter. He is directly responsible for the death of a Pureblood Wizard from an ancient Pureblood house and what is more he does not even have the decency to show the slightest bit of remorse for his actions. I move that we charge him with one count of conspiracy to commit murder and in addition two counts of accessory to murder for the deaths of James and Lily Potter" said Sirius.

"I agree" said Cornelius Fudge, followed quickly by the agreement of Tiberius Ogden and the rest of the Wizengamot. Snape was quickly sentenced to 20 years in Azkaban.

oo00oo

Back at Hogwarts Harry and Neville were called into Professor McGonagall's office for a quick chat.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Longbottom thank you for coming so promptly" said the stern tranfiguration professor. "I wanted to ask you how your potions classes are going."

"Very well Professor, Miss Curie is a really good teacher" said Harry.

"That is good to know. The thing is, it does not look like Professor Snape will be returning to Hogwarts anytime soon, so I have to find someone to take over from him. Miss Curie came to mind so if you don't mind I'd like to ask you a few questions about her classes."

"What would you like to know Professor?" said Neville.

"Well, she's been teaching you for almost two months now correct?"

"Yes."

"How many potions has she had you brew during that time?"

"Not a one Professor. Miss Curie says we are not allowed to touch a cauldron until we have memorised the properties of all of the most common potion ingredients. According to her unless we know exactly how all the various ingredients interact with each other it is too dangerous to brew potions."

"I see. That is a very different approach from Professor Snape."

"Yes, she doesn't think much of Professor Snape's methods to be honest, according to her not only was he criminally negligent to have first years brew a potion that had volatile ingredients in their very first class but she also thinks that his methods of instructions result in students that don't know anything but how to brew potions from recipes that someone else has come up with" said Harry.

"I see, may I ask what else she has been teaching you during this time."

"Ingredient preparation mostly. She says unless we can do a perfect _mise en place_ we are never going to be any good at potions."

"_Mise en place_? I do not believe I have heard that term before. What does it mean?"

"Oh that's just when you prepare and keep all the ingredients ready before you start brewing. You know cutting, dicing, grinding whatever. She has very high standards and we're still learning all the different methods" said Neville.

"I see, well she certainly sounds competent. Thank you very much boys, I think I shall be having a talk with Miss Curie soon. Hopefully she will be willing to take up a full time position here."

oo00oo

Soon after Harry found himself in a meeting with yet another Hogwarts Professor. Quirrell had called him to his quarters to discuss recent events.

"Hello Professor, you wanted to see me?" asked Harry.

"Yes Mr. Potter, I had some things I wanted to discuss with you."

"Okay, Do you want me to get Sirius on the mirror as well?"

"You may if you prefer, however I don't need to speak to him today, only you."

"Okay, what did you want to discuss?"

"Oh, this and that. The first would be that I thought you should know that I have retrieved my remaining horcruxes and reclaimed all my soul fragments. I no longer have a single horcrux."

Harry was surprised, somehow he had expected Tom to keep the remaining horcruxes as insurance against being killed. He briefly contemplated asking to see the Gaunt ring, but then he decided he did not want to know if it was truly the resurrection stone or not. It was best to leave that issue alone. "How did you get into the Lestrange vault?"

"When I gave it to Bellatrix and asked her to keep it safe in her vault I also asked her for a key and a letter granting the bearer authorisation to access the vault. Just in case something happened to her or her husband."

"I see. May I ask how you feel now that your soul is once again complete?"

"Hmmm, it seems to have added some clarity to my thinking. Increased my mental acuity back to what it was before I ever made a Horcrux."

"Really, you mean you're smarter now? From my observations of you since school started I did not think that was possible. You've been absolutely brilliant as a DADA Professor and in all our other dealings and if you were not operating at a hundred percent then... I think the rest of the school year should be very interesting" said Harry.

"Yes, well I've been rethinking some of our interactions and I've come to the conclusion that I seem to have a nasty habit of underestimating you."

"How so?"

"You and Black as well to be honest. I was quite surprised to hear during the trial that the law that saw Dumbledore sentenced to nearly thirty-eight years in prison was in fact penned by Mr. Black. Not only that but he did it five years before it would be used. That suggests a remarkable propensity for long term planning that I did not think him capable off. Not only that but in all our planning sessions he never once let slip that he had written the law that we were planning on using. Tell me, did he write it just so that he could use it against Dumbledore someday?"

"Yes, yes he did. He hates politics to tell you the truth, he only entered the Wizengamot so that he could see Dumbledore get what was coming to him."

"Remarkable. One would almost think he had a bit of Seer in him. How did he know that Dumbledore would ever do anything to put the school in danger?"

Harry really did not want to go into details about his other set of memories, or the fact that it was his mother that had asked Sirius to write up such a law. "Dumbledore has always been remarkably unconcerned with the students safety. Did you know that when Sirius and my parents were in school there was a werewolf attending along with them?"

"Really?"

"Yes, and it seems that the only precaution that Dumbledore took was to provide a place for the transformations. He did not have a professor monitor the transformations or guard the place provided for the same. It seems to have been left totally up to the student himself to make sure that he was secure for the transformations. Not that I have anything against werewolves you understand. Most of the time they're just people with an unfortunate condition that manifests once a month. However to leave one to transform unmonitored near a school full of children... It boggles the mind really."

"Remarkable, and to think this man was the headmaster."

"Yes," said Harry, "In fact, did you know he didn't even do anything when Snape was almost killed by the student when he followed him during a full moon."

"Such a pity he wasn't. If anyone deserved to die in such a manner it was Snape."

"You know you seem to hold a lot of animosity towards Snape. Much more than you displayed towards the other Death Eaters. Why is that?"

"Isn't it obvious Potter. I was a Slytherin and I was proud to be one. That man has done more to harm Slytherin house than anyone. Slytherin is supposed to be the house of the cunning and ambitious. Under Snape it has degenerated to a house of mindless thugs. Not only did he turn the rest of the school against Slytherin with his unfair point deductions and behaviour but he set the worst kind of example for the students of his house. Look at the way he made his dislike of you so blatantly obvious. You are the Boy Who Lived, an icon for the rest of the wizarding world, your influence will only grow from here on and he set out to insult and humiliate you. Why? A true Slytherin would never have given you the slightest inkling that he disliked you, he would have made sure to make the best possible impression upon you and turned you into his biggest supporter. Now his predecessor - that was a true Slytherin."

"Slughorn?"

"Yes, did you know that from his position here at Hogwarts, Slughorn amassed the kind of network that most can only dream of. He knew absolutely everyone worth knowing. I dare say that he could arrange for anything that he wanted to. If you were interested in playing Professional Quidditch - with one owl he could arrange a meeting with any team coach that you desired. Need to see a healer, Slughorn would be able to put you in touch with the Head of St. Mungos. Whats more he did all this with minimal effort on his part. All he did was throw those Slug Club parties, parties that were hardly a chore as he himself enjoyed them immensely. And Dumbledore replaced him with Snape - Snape a man who seemed to derive pleasure from antagonising as many people as he could."

"Dumbledore has much to answer for" said Harry.

"Yes, but to get back on topic, I was saying how I had underestimated you - You know I was quite surprised by that quill you had me put the compulsion charm on. That showed a certain...ruthlessness that I did not expect you to possess."

"Yes, that reminds me, I did want to thank you for your help. Your charm worked perfectly and the aurors who investigated the incident did not suspect a thing."

"Hmmm, yes. Someday you must tell me why that was necessary. Well anyway, once I became aware that I had been seriously underestimating you I went over all our interactions and I was wondering..."

"Yes?"

"_When exactly do you plan on killing me?_"

Harry stared at Quirrell. It was a supremely dangerous moment. He imagined he could almost feel ice cracking beneath his feet about to plunge him into an icy death. He decided to go mostly with the truth.

"Professor, I have absolutely no plans to do you any harm whatsoever. For that matter haven't you forgotten our unbreakable vows to each other?"

"Yes - our vows, they did lull me into quite the false sense of security. But then I remembered - your vow is valid only as long as neither me nor _any of my followers_ attack you."

"So?"

"So - You had that altercation with Snape in your first potions class. That could be construed as an attack on you by Snape. For that matter when we lured my former followers here to the school, their actions could have been taken as an attack on the school and by extension the students which of course includes you. Right now I doubt whether you are bound by any vow whatsoever. So I ask again - When are you planning on killing me. I do not want to wait around wondering when my end will come. You have your wand I trust. I am right here and I am still bound by my vow. That means that you are free to take the first shot at me. My wand is not in my hand and I am sitting barely three feet from you, there is no way you will miss. Go ahead and take your shot."

Harry wondered if part of Tom had a death wish, after all he knew from observing Harry and Sirius practise, that Harry could easily cast a blasting curse. At this distance, if he hit Tom's head or even his chest it was bound to be fatal. Was Tom still trying to atone for his previous actions? Did he not have anything to live for now that he had disposed of his Death Eaters? Or was he simply tying to goad Harry into freeing him from his vow?

"You're right, I may not be bound by the vow any more, but I have absolutely no intention of testing it out by attacking you. Why exactly do you think I want to kill you?" asked Harry, carefully not moving a single muscle towards his wand.

"I doubt that you have forgotten that I was the one who killed your parents Potter. For that matter now that my Death Eaters and Dumbledore have been taken care of - you have no further use of me. Now I am no more than a liability to you and Black. Why would you not take your revenge?"

"For one, it was the Dark Lord Voldemort who killed my parents. You are no longer that man. Secondly, I think you are underestimating me again Professor. My plans did not end with the removal of a handful of people. No, they are much larger in scope and you - I still consider you an incredible asset. I would hardly discard someone so valuable to me" said Harry.

"And what are these plans?"

"In the short term not much, a few loose ends need to be tied up. The DMLE will soon receive an anonymous tip about a fugitive living with Barty Crouch. We will need to decide if we want to bother doing anything about Karkaroff at some point. Long term - look at the world around us Professor. The conditions that saw the rise of a Dark Lord are still largely unchanged. Purebloods still cling stubbornly to their little fiefdoms. Muggleborns and half-bloods are still discriminated against. Other magical creatures are still treated as subhumans. I plan to be an agent of change Professor. I plan to drag the wizarding world out of its stagnation. Will you join me?" asked Harry.

"What do your plans have to do with me?" asked Quirrell, barely indicating what he thought about Harry's rather grandiose announcement.

"The original plan was for you to enter politics. Quirinus Quirrell is a pureblood wizard with an impeccable background and is currently famous as the Defender of Hogwarts. The man who saved a school full of children should not have much difficulty in getting elected. You're a bit young now but within ten years you could easily be the next Minister of Magic. It also doesn't hurt that the corporation that Sirius and I own - The Flower Foundation - has already taken a majority ownership of the Daily Prophet which will now be only too pleased to loudly proclaim your suitability for the post. Once you were in the Ministry you could help getting things changed the way we want. Sirius can only do so much on his own in the Wizengamot after all."

"The Flower Foundation?"

"Yes, we created it shortly before school started. We can use to do things we don't want directly linked to us. Things like buying the Prophet, investing in the Wizarding Wireless or the Quibbler and Witch Weekly. In fact, you might consider accessing the Lestrange vault again and investing its contents with us. it doesn't hurt to have as much money as we can behind us after all."

"You said that was your original plan. What is your current plan?" asked Quirrell.

"Well, Fudge is proving to be quite malleable and so far is very willing to listen to any suggestions that Sirius makes so for now we have no pressing need to replace him. Also your DADA classes have been quite the revelation. I had not expected you to be half as good a teacher as you are. In my humble opinion you are currently the best Professor in this school and I am extremely reluctant to have the school lose your services. I have to ask you Professor - How do you like being an educator? What would you prefer - going into politics or helping to shape the minds of the next generation of wizards and witches?"

"Politics might not be the best choice for me, after all the last time I had a taste for power...we both know how that turned out. I think that I would far prefer staying at Hogwarts. I find teaching here to be very...satisfying."

"Good to know. I think that it's time I told you about our plans for Hogwarts. Truly lasting change must start with education after all. There are quite a few things that we will be looking at changing. To start with..."

oo00oo


	20. Chapter 20

Chapter 20

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The entire Hogwarts Staff had been called into a meeting with Amelia Bones and others from the Ministry. It had been a time of great uncertainty for most of them. They had been horrified at the repercussions to the Death Eater attack and the DMLE's reaction to discovering the Philosopher's Stone and it's protections. McGonagall, Sprout, Hagrid and Flitwick were on tenterhooks. If someone like Dumbledore could be sentenced to Azkaban, what would their fate be? After all they had all contributed to the defences around the stone. Had the ministry finally come around to levelling charges at the rest of them? Would they be charged with Child Endangerment as well? Four Hundred and Fifty Four Months in Azkaban. Was that the fate awaiting all of them?

"All right, everyone come in and take a seat" announced Amelia Bones in a strict no-nonsense tone. "I have a few announcements to make."

The staff members wandered into the room and took their seats around the table. They saw that Sirius Black and Frank Longbottom were also accompanying Amelia.

"The first item on the agenda is to inform you that due to their inability to keep Dumbledore in check the entire Board of Governors has been sacked by special decree of the Ministry of Magic." Having Lucius Malfoy as one of their members also hadn't helped the previous board. "The Ministry has set up a new provisional board consisting of I, Sirius Black and Frank Longbottom" said Amelia.

"Secondly, we are very disappointed with the conduct of the Hogwarts Staff. With the exception of Professor Quirrell none of you seem to have found anything wrong with Dumbledore's plan for the stone that put the entire school in danger. None of you'll saw fit to inform the DMLE or the Ministry that the Headmaster was overstepping his bounds and endangering the students. For now the Ministry has decided that you will not be held responsible as you'll were following Dumbledore's orders. You may consider yourselves very lucky that we are not pressing charges against the whole lot of you. We cannot and will not allow such a situation to occur again. Therefore there is a new condition for your continued employment here at Hogwarts. Each of you is required to sign a magical contract. This contract will not allow you to do anything to endanger the students. It will force you to put the safety of the students first and foremost before any other considerations. There are also a few other conditions such as a requirement to teach in a fair unbiased manner. Staff are not allowed to let any prejudices you'll may have to interfere in any way with the student's education or grades. You will always be required to be absolutely fair and unbiased in your dealing with the students. Please look over the contracts, they are in the folders in front of you. If any of you fell that you are unable to sign such a contract then you may submit your resignations at once" said Amelia.

McGonagall and the others spent a few moments going over the contract. It was an extraordinarily well crafted document. The writer had not left a single loophole and the consequences for breaking it were not too severe. Breaking the contract immediately caused the signer to be magically evicted from Hogwarts. They could live with that. The writer had also put in a warning of sorts. If the signer carried out any actions to break the contact they would immediately feel pain. They would then be given five minutes to reverse their actions before they were magically evicted from the Hogwart's grounds. So if someone broke a condition by mistake they would know and could rectify it. One by one each member of the staff signed their contracts.

"The final item on the agenda is the announcement of the new Headmaster. We have decided to give the job to someone who has proven that he puts the safety of the children above all other considerations. Therefore it is my pleasure to announce that professor Quirrell will be the new Headmaster of Hogwarts" said Amelia.

"But-but he's too young and inexperienced" sputtered McGonagall.

"Unfortunately Minerva the sad fact is that all your years and years of experience didn't help in keeping the children safe. Did it Minerva? I'm sorry Minerva, I know you were next in line for the job but you were much too close to Dumbledore and you did nothing to stop him from putting the students at risk. Out of all the experienced professors here only Professor Quirrell tried to inform the DMLE about Dumbledore's actions. We also questioned the students about his classes and the response we got was overwhelmingly positive. Therefore we feel that he is without a doubt the best man for the job" said Amelia. "I will now turn the meeting over to you Professor Quirrell."

"Thank you Madam Bones, your faith in me is very gratifying and much appreciated. Professor McGonagall I do hope that I can continue to count on you in your role as Deputy Headmistress?" said Quirrell.

"Yes-Yes of course" said a dismayed McGonagall. She had always expected to become Headmistress once Dumbledore retired and now someone much younger than her was being made Headmaster. She knew that meant she would never become Headmistress and it was a bitter disappointment to her.

"Well, then I believe the first matter that needs to be addressed is a few changes to our staff. I believe Professor McGonagall was already looking into a replacement for Professor Snape. How is that going Professor?" asked Quirrell.

"I've set up an interview with a Miss Curie. She's been tutoring Potter and Longbottom in Potions and I believe she will make an excellent replacement for Professor Snape."

"Excellent. We will still require a new Head for Slytherin House. Who do you think would be most suitable for that?" said Quirrell.

"Perhaps Professor Vector would be willing to take on the added responsibility?" said McGonagall.

"Professor Vector?" asked Quirrell.

"Yes, of course I would be happy to" answered Vector.

"Excellent, so that's settled - Professor Vector shall be the new head of Slytherin House. Now there is one other change that I feel is urgently required. I think Professor Binns needs to be replaced as our History Professor as soon as possible. From what I have seen and heard, most of the students seem to view that class as a scheduled nap-time. We must get a Professor in here who can teach the children more than just the goblin rebellions. Someone who can make the subject inspiring."

"But... what do we do about Binns? He's a part of Hogwart's history" asked McGonagall.

"Yes, in some ways Binns is quite inspiring. He embodies a truly wonderful work ethic. The Professor who would not even let death stop him from doing his job. That aspect of him is truly a wonderful example for the children. Don't you think?" said Quirrell.

"So what do you plan on doing?" asked Flitwick.

"What I propose is that we move Binns to another role. I think it would be a more effective use of his talents if we..." and Professor Quirrell explained his plan to a group of surprised teachers, who were wondering why no one had ever thought of that before.

oo00oo

"There is one more thing left to discuss" said Professor Quirrell, "and that is - Hagrid. As you know due to the recent unpleasantness, all of you were investigated and during the investigation it came to light that Hagrid was expelled from Hogwarts and is not currently authorised to carry a wand."

"You can't get rid of Hagrid. You just can't..." shouted McGonagall.

"Calm down Professor, no one is suggesting we get rid of Hagrid. What I wanted to ask Hagrid is why, in all these years, he never appealed his expulsion. After all records show that there was barely any evidence linking him to the death of the student" said Quirrell.

"Eh, I asked Professor Dumbledore many times whether he could do something and he always said that dere was no use in appealin'. That dere was no evidence" answered Hagrid.

"I see, well I hesitate to speak ill of Professor Dumbledore - there has been more than enough of that going on. However, just the fact that it was Tom Riddle that turned you in to Headmaster Dippet was more than enough to overturn your expulsion."

"What does Tom Riddle have to do with this?" asked a puzzled McGonagall.

"Hmm, and here I thought you were privy to all of Dumbledore's secrets. It's really quite astonishing the number of things he kept close to his chest - Tom Riddle was the birth-name of Lord Voldemort" said Amelia Bones.

"What?" exclaimed Hagrid, "It was You Know Who what turned me in?"

"Yes. Anyway once that came to light we decided to do something about it" said Frank Longbottom.

"W-Why?"

"Hagrid, the ministry is currently full of people who remember you most fondly from their years at Hogwarts. How many times did you chase Sirius and his friends out of the Forbidden Forest? How many other students have you had over to your house for tea and those unforgettable rock cakes of yours? You could have come to us anytime and we would have done our best to help you. I'm only sorry that I never thought of it before" said Frank Longbottom.

"B-But Professor Dumbledore h-he ... he said..." said Hagrid.

"Yes, well thankfully Dumbledore is no longer in charge" said Amelia as she handed over a piece of official looking parchment to Hagrid, "and as a representative of the Ministry it is my great pleasure to give you this official notice that your previous expulsion has been overturned and you are now authorised to carry a wand."

"T-Thank Yeh" said a teary, overwhelmed Hagrid.

"Right, now as Headmaster I would like to talk about moving you to another position. I believe Professor Kettleburn is looking to retire in a few years. With that in mind I'd like you to work with him over the remaining school year. Everyone knows that you know everything there is to know about the care of Magical Creatures. I'd like you to consider taking your OWL's and NEWT's for COMC. I'm sure that you can pass the practical portions of the exams right now if you so wish. Professor Kettleburn will help you with the theory part of the exam. Once you have the necessary qualifications we can transition you to the post of Assistant Professor with the idea that you will eventually become a full professor. I think that the NEWT level students will benefit greatly from working with you" said Quirrell.

"I could do that" said Hagrid.

"There is one small caveat though Hagrid. We all know of your...hmmm...inclination to underestimate the danger posed by certain Magical Creatures. Therefore for now I would like you to work only with the NEWT students. Also I'd like you to get Professor Kettleburn's approval for all the creatures you wish to introduce your students too" said Quirrell.

"Of course Headmaster" said Hagrid.

"We should also get Filch to start taking over your duties as Groundskeeper. Ideally I would like to limit his interaction with the students as much as possible. The man seems to think that the only way to enforce discipline is by threatening the children with all sorts of tortures" said Quirrell.

"Finally, recently the ministry obtained something that presents us with a priceless educational opportunity." Quirrell retrieved a wooden case from the side of the room and presented it to Hagrid. "Go on and take the lid off" said Quirrell.

Hagrid carefully pried off the lid of the case. Inside it nestled in straw was an huge black egg.

"Blimey, is-is that a...?"

"Yes Hagrid, that is a Dragon egg. Professors McGonagall and Flitwick could you kindly help Hagrid create a flame proof enclosure. Something large enough to accommodate the dragons nest as well as our NEWT students. The ministry has authorised us to keep the Dragon egg until it hatches and for a little while after that. We can keep it until it's a month old, after which the Dragon will have to be transferred to a Dragon Reserve."

"I've always wanted a Dragon" whispered Hagrid, staring at the egg in absolute bliss.

Quirrell fought hard to keep his face pleasant. Why on earth had the boy insisted that Hagrid be given a Dragon? A Dragon of all things. Why was he allied with him again? How on earth had the boy known he had the necessary contacts to obtain such an item in the first place? He glumly wondered how many safety charms and wards he would have to layer over the dragon's temporary home before his oath to keep the students safe would be satisfied. Especially as the person who was supposed to be taking care of it was even now looking at it as if it was the cutest, fluffiest kitten on the face of the planet. Oh well, it was only for a month or so anyway, and the students would appreciate getting to see a baby dragon. Hardly any people outside the Dragon Reserves could make that claim after all. Not to mention that he did owe Hagrid as well. Giving him a dragon might not repay the debt but surely it reduced it a by a bit. He would probably have to organise some tours for the younger children as well or he'd have to place a twenty-four hour guard on the enclosure to keep the curious away.

"Try not to get too attached to it Hagrid. Remember we only have it for a short time" warned Quirrell.

oo00oo

It was the Christmas break and Harry was back with his family. Dudley was back from Smeltings as well and the two boys had been trying to cram as much fun into their break as they could. When Sirius Black showed up that morning he found the house a pleasant mix of Christmas cheer topped off with a sprinkling of the chaos that Dudley and Harry specialised in. Petunia opened the door to find an uncharacteristically pale and vaguely shell shocked looking Sirius.

"Sirius, this is a pleasant surprise, what brings you by so early and why are you looking so...so..." said Petunia.

"Hi Petunia, eh ... just had a bit of news I had to tell you all. Could you let Harry know I'm here" said Sirius.

"Sure Sirius, why don't you take a seat. I'll put some tea on, shall I?" asked Petunia.

"Tea would be lovely, thank you" said Sirius as he sat down in their living room.

Harry came running to meet Sirius as soon as he heard that he was there.

"Hey Sirius, Mum said you had some news" exclaimed Harry.

"Yes...news...yes. Perhaps we should wait for your Mum to come back, I could really do with some tea" said Sirius nervously.

"Okay, now you've got me worried. What's happened?" asked Harry.

"Oh...it's nothing to worry about really..." said Sirius.

Petunia came in with the tea at that moment and Harry was jumping out of his skin with impatience as she served tea to Sirius.

"Come on now, you've got your tea. Now tell me what happened" said Harry.

"Uh ... it's all your mother's fault" said Sirius.

"Me? What did I do?" exclaimed a surprised Petunia.

"Sorry Petunia, not you, I was talking about Lily" said Sirius.

"Huh. What did Lily do?" asked Petunia.

"You know what happened ten years ago right?" asked Sirius.

"You mean... When she?" asked Petunia.

"Yes, exactly. Well she had a plan and part of the plan required me to become friends with Amelia Bones. We needed her support for some laws we needed to get passed in the Wizengamot and we knew that we would need her help when it came to dealing with Dumbledore..." said Sirius.

"So?" asked Harry. "All that went perfectly according to plan. What changed?"

"The problem is that she warned me not to get too friendly with her. If you know what I mean? She was worried that I might muck things up if that happened..." Sirius trailed off once again.

"Yes, and..." prompted an impatient Harry.

"So for the last ten years I've been restraining myself around the woman. Suppressing that old Black charm - don't snort Petunia, it doesn't help my ego at all" said Sirius.

"Sorry Sirius" giggled Petunia.

"Anyway, like I was saying for ten years I've been very careful around Amelia. Didn't flirt at all like I normally do. Then we managed to get Dumbledore put away ... and I thought - Hey, I don't need to do that anymore" said Sirius.

"What exactly did you do Sirius?" asked Harry.

"I may have gone a little overboard..." moaned Sirius.

"By how much exactly?" asked Harry.

"Uhh... the thing is ... Uhh... congratulate me ... I'm engaged" said Sirius to a stunned Harry.

Petunia let out a loud squeal. "Oh Sirius, that's wonderful news. I've been telling you for ages that you need to find someone and settle down."

Harry was extremely surprised. He had not seen this coming at all.

"Uh... Isn't she a bit older than you?" asked Harry.

"Just by a couple of years, they really don't make a difference" said Sirius.

"And she wears a monocle" added Harry.

"That's just for work" said Sirius defensively. "It's got some enchantments on it to help spot disillusioned people and invisibility cloaks."

"Okay, then I'm not really seeing a problem here Sirius" said Harry.

"The problem is ... I'm too young to get married" wailed Sirius.

"Nonsense Sirius, you're in your thirties, it's high time you settled down" interjected Petunia. "I'm sure you'll make her an excellent husband."

"You'd better. We still need her support for those anti-discrimination laws we need to get passed eventually" said Harry.

"Oh, that won't be a problem at all" said Sirius. "Sounded her out on those ages ago and she's totally on board."

"Great. So I guess congratulations are in order" said Harry.

"Yes, in fact we have to have a party" added Petunia. "When are you introducing her to us Sirius?"

"Yes-Yes you're absolutely right. I should probably throw a little get together. Introduce her to the family" said Sirius. "Oh and before I forget, I'm going to need you to be my best man Harry."

"Me?" asked a surprised Harry. "I would have expected you to ask Remus."

"Ugh" grimaced Sirius. "He's not really talking to me at the moment. Turns out he's a little angry at my part in Dumbledore's trial. Make that a lot angry actually."

"Still idolises him huh?" asked Harry.

"He did let him attend Hogwarts even though he was a werewolf" explained Sirius.

"Hmmm..." Harry wondered whether this meant that Remus would never meet and marry Tonks. Without the Order of the Phoenix pushing them together it wasn't likely that they would get together but as long as Sirius and Remus remained friends there had always been the chance that they would at least meet. Now though... Oh well, come to think of it Tonks could do a lot better than Remus. True - he had been a really nice man, but he was also the man who had wanted to run away after learning he had gotten her pregnant. Harry remembered how indignant and outraged the other Harry had been at his behaviour. Perhaps things had worked out for the best after all.

oo00oo


	21. Chapter 21

Chapter 21

* * *

The wedding of Sirius Black and Amelia Bones was quite the event. What with Amelia's position in the Wizengamot and Sirius' reputation of being a bit of a bad boy - it got a ton of attention from the press. There were loads of incredibly sappy articles written about how the power of love had finally tamed the infamous Sirius Black. Reams of parchment were devoted to endless descriptions of the bride's dress, the wedding preparations, the decor, what shoes the wedding party were going to wear, the food to be served, flower arrangements and every other little detail that no man would ever notice. Even the baker became famous when his wedding cake was described down to the last bit of icing and he subsequently found himself in high demand for every single event that a cake could be served at. And all that was before Harry's part in the wedding became public. Once the press found out that the Boy-Who-Lived was going to be the best man the amount of attention the wedding started getting was insane. Harry and Sirius didn't really pay any attention to the press or give any interviews which only spurred the reporters to greater heights of speculation. Thankfully due to their new acquisition of controlling interest in the Prophet, people like Rita Skeeter were unable to write the kind of articles they specialised in and other publications like Witch Weekly were much happier printing in depth analyses of their clothes, rather than trying to tear down their reputations. Rita was actually being kept quite busy, as Sirius through his controlling interest of the Prophet had already commissioned her to write a book about Dumbledore. Harry was quite looking forward to the publication of the book designed to shred Dumbledore's already tattered reputation even further. He wondered if perhaps he was being a bit petty, but he really didn't want Dumbledore being turned into some sort of Martyr and if tarnishing his reputation even further prevented that, then so be it.

Harry invited Hermione and Neville as his guests to the wedding. He also took full advantage of the opportunity to get to know Susan Bones better and by the time the wedding was over was able to call both her and Hannah Abbot good friends.

Before Sirius left on his Honeymoon, he did gave Harry a gift. A certain wand he had managed to sneak out of the DMLE's evidence room. He had replaced it with a copy that would fool anyone on first sight. He didn't know why Harry had wanted it and he didn't really care. Harry on his part thanked Sirius profusely, then went and placed the wand carefully in the deepest corner of his vault. It seemed to work very well for him, but he felt it was better to continue to use his old holly and phoenix feather wand. The other wand could be kept for emergencies. Hopefully he would never ever need it.

oo00oo

It was the end of the school year and for a change Ravenclaw had won the House Cup. Quirrell had just finished awarding the cup to a pleased Flitwick and he was now calling for the students to quieten down.

"Settle down everyone, I have a few more announcements to get through" said Quirrell in his usual calm manner.

"Yes, thank you. Now as you all know, we have seen some changes in the last year, most noticeably in Potions and History of Magic. I'd like to announce that the Governors have given their approval for making Professors Hawkins and Curie permanent members of the Hogwarts' Staff. Incidentally the preliminary reports from the examiners of the OWL's and NEWT's show that there has been a remarkable increase in the numbers of Outstanding grades for both History and Potions this year so please give a round of applause for Professor Hawkins and Professor Curie" said Quirrell. There was an enthusiastic round of applause. The new professors were both incredibly popular with the students which was hardly surprising considering that they were replacements for Binns and Snape.

"I'd also like for you to give another round of applause for Professor Binns. Ever since he took over detentions we have seen a remarkable decrease in student misbehaviour and assigned detentions." The applause this time was quite muted and was mostly led by the professors. The new disciplinary rules had Binns overseeing all the detentions which consisted of a two hour lecture on a random goblin rebellion followed by a written test on the contents of that lecture. Unless the student managed to get an 'A' or better on the test they would have to repeat the detention. The Weasley twins had given up on pranking after their first detention with Binns. Quite understandable, considering that it took them ten detentions and many many Pepper Up potions before they managed to pass the test. They hadn't minded scrubbing toilets for Filch but they drew the line at Binns, there was no way they would risk getting another detention after that. The professors loved the arrangement however as none of them (except perhaps for people like Snape and Filch who probably took perverse pleasure in punishing children) had particularly liked giving up their free time to oversee detentions.

"Yes, well settle down everyone. I do have quite a few more announcements to get through. Like I said we have already seen some changes, however there are some major changes that will be going into effect from next year. Details of these will be sent to your parents shortly, some of them may not be too happy with the changes but both the Ministry and the Board of Governors firmly believe that these changes are very necessary and long overdue." Most of the students started looking a little worried at Quirrell's announcement. Harry on the other hand was absolutely relaxed, after all he was the instigator behind most of the changes. Now the only thing left was to see how the students reacted.

"Firstly and most importantly, this is the last year that a House Cup will be awarded here at Hogwarts" said Quirrell causing a susurrus to break out at once. Most of the students were too stunned to react which kept the noise levels down. No House Cup? But then what about House points?

"This is due to the fact that from next year, the students will no longer be sorted by House. Your dormitories will be assigned by year, and instead of a Head of House, the various professors will be assigned as advisors and counsellors to the different years. Professor Sprout will be handling years 1 and 2, Professor Flitwick will be handling 3 and 4, Professor McGonagall will be handling years 5 and 6 and year 7 will be handled by Professor Vector." This time the uproar was immediate and much louder. No more houses, but that was unthinkable. Wasn't it? Ron didn't know what to think, if there were no more Slytherins - How would he know who was evil? This was monumentally unfair.

"I'm sure most of you are quite surprised by this development being that it goes against thousands of years of tradition" said Quirrell. "The undeniable fact is that the house system no longer works. Most of the discipline problems we see here at Hogwarts can be traced back to inter house rivalry. If you have the time and inclination I suggest looking up the Robbers Cave Experiment to see a very good example of why dividing students up into separate groups can be a very bad idea. How many of you students have friends in other houses? Far too few. Why do you let this artificial grouping stop you from making friends or even acquaintances in the other houses? Anyway, to cut a long story short, henceforth here at Hogwarts we will no longer have houses. All students will be assigned dormitories by year, classes will be grouped at random or by grades and the points system will also be reworked. Well, to tell you the truth we still have not decided what to do about the point system. There was some talk about keeping it in place but tracking the points by students instead of by house. That way we could award a prize to the student in each year who has won the most points. However I am not yet convinced that this would be a good idea."

By now the students were totally in shock, but still one of them called out - "But what about Quidditch?"

Quidditch unfortunately had taken a severe drop in popularity that year. The first Quidditch match after the Professors had taken their oath had been interrupted by all the professors running out onto the field and blasting the bludgers to shreds moments after the game had started. An unexpected effect of their oath to keep the students safe had been that all Quidditch matches had to be cancelled while the professors worked out how to make it safer. They had started with the bludgers of course. Iron balls whizzing around trying to knock players of their brooms would never be safe. These had been replaced by marshmallow soft rubber balls that would not even leave a bruise. This meant that the players could mostly ignore the bludgers totally. Next the professors had turned their attention to the rest of the game. Anti-collision charms and speed limiters had been placed on all the brooms, their robes had been modified with cushioning and levitation charms so that even if a student fell off a broom a hundred feet in the air they would get hurt less than if they had tripped while walking down a corridor. Needless to say the games popularity had taken a steep nosedive. The one most frustrated by all of this was Harry, especially as he had been the one who had thought of the oaths. Quidditch had been an unforeseen casualty of his changes. While he had not wanted to play again in his first year, he had still fully intended to try out in his second or maybe third year. Now though the game had all the excitement of watching two snails race. Sure one of them would eventually win but it sure as hell wasn't anything that anyone would ever want to watch. He and Sirius had been brainstorming ideas on how to make Quidditch exciting all year.

"Aah yes, Quidditch. As I'm sure you're aware we have been having some problems with the sport here at Hogwarts. Our changes to make the game safer for our students have I admit, not been very popular. We will be making some changes to the game that I hope will see it return to its former popularity. To begin with, the problem with the bludgers is that going back to the iron balls is obviously impossible, due to their highly dangerous nature, and the new balls can be effectively ignored by all the players making the beaters redundant. To fix this the bludgers will have a new function in the game. When a bludger hits a player, the player's broom will immediately drop its speed by 5 percent for 5 minutes. This means that the bludger can no longer be ignored and will still be a factor in the games. Next, I know the speed limiters on the broom have been highly unpopular. These will be removed for every player that can demonstrate that they can pilot a broom at its top speed. We will also be getting new brooms for all players. We have been in touch with the Nimbus Corporation, which will be providing Hogwarts with a completely new set of brooms. Players will no longer be allowed to play on their own brooms. This should equalise the game so that it will no longer be the players who can afford the best broom who will win. I am also hiring two new coaches who will be joining Madam Hooch to ensure that everyone is well trained. Previously your Quidditch training was left up to your team captains. This is no longer acceptable. Having untrained flyers playing is a risk that will no longer be tolerated. Obviously we will no longer have House teams, which as far as I am concerned, is a good thing. Each of our houses have hundreds of students but only seven students per house get a chance to play. Giving only seven students per house the opportunity to play competitive Quidditch is a travesty that is no doubt responsible for the dismal performance of our National teams in each World Cup. I hope to see more students playing Quidditch and so from now on - any seven students can form a team and you can have as many teams as you can form. Each team will have scheduled practises with our coaches who will help them reach their full potential. I hope to see many more students playing next year" finished Quirrell to thunderous applause. The students loved the sound of new brooms for everyone and the idea that more of them would get to play was immediately wildly popular.

Quirrell paused for a bit. He knew that he had already shocked the students with his changes. Unfortunately for them he was not done yet.

"As I look around, I am saddened by the sight of some of our graduating pureblood students. The sad fact is that most of them will spend the rest of their lives skulking within our little wizarding enclaves. Most of them know so little about the non magical world that they would not even be able to get a job flipping burgers. I'm sure that most of them don't even know what I mean by the term 'flipping burgers'. There are those who did not mind you being kept ignorant of the world around you. I'm sure it made certain peoples jobs easier if you did not ever venture out into the non magical world. I am not one of those people. We are wizards and witches. We should be able to go anywhere and do anything that we want to do. So.." Quirrell paused and looked around at the students. "From next year every single student who does not have at least one non magical parent is required to take a new subject - that is...the 'Culture and Customs of Non Magical People'. Our previous so called 'Muggle' studies classes were found to be totally inadequate and have been scrapped. In addition all students without at least one magical parent are required to attend our classes on the 'Culture and Customs of Magical People'. Do not worry about being bored, as part of both these courses we will be arranging for several field trips throughout the year that will be so much fun that we will be making them open to all students. We have already planned trips to places such as Cinemas, Museums, Dragon Reserves, Amusement Parks and the Wizengamot. In addition to this, changes have been made to our third year electives. Divination will still be offered but will no longer count towards your requirement of taking two electives. Students will be required to take any two of either Ancient Runes, Arithmancy or Care of Magical Creature. These changes of course will not be enforced on students who have already taken their OWL's as it is probably too late for them to pick up the new subjects." Trelawney looked deeply unhappy about this but knew that there would always be some students who would be fascinated at the thought of predicting the future.

"Also to supplement their knowledge of the non magical world we are introducing several non magical subjects such as Geography, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Literature and Mathematics. Our History course is being modified to include the History of both the Magical World as well as the Non Magical World. While I strongly urge all of you to take this opportunity and pick up as many non magical subjects as you can, I am also making it mandatory for our current first year students. In order to graduate from Hogwarts you will be required to pass at least one O level subject* and one A level subject along with your OWL's and NEWT's. Information on all of these is being included with the packages that will be distributed at the end of our feast."

"Finally I come to my last announcement. I know, I know, I'm sure most of you are wondering, after all that, there's more? Yes, Yes there is. I hope all of you enjoy your trip home on the Hogwarts Express... as it is the last time the train shall be running. With the near instantaneous methods of travel available to us such as the floo and portkeys, the Hogwarts express is an anachronism that we should have gotten rid of long ago. The only thing stopping us, is that previously we would have had to arrange for portkeys for all our students and that was an expense that the Ministry and the Board of Governors were not willing to bear. I am most pleased to announce that thanks to a donation from the Flowers Foundation we will now be able to arrange for portkeys for all our students. People will be visiting you during the summer to fix the end points of your portkeys. There will be a form in your packets that you will need to fill in with a convenient time for your appointment. You will need to provide a private space within your homes where no one will be able to observe your comings and goings. These portkeys will be created to be reusable and will allow you to instantly travel between your homes and Hogwarts. This means that you will be allowed to go home at the end of every school day if you wish. Your dorms will still be available to those of you who prefer to stay here. You may wish to stay here at Hogwarts, popping home for the occasional dinner or weekend with your parents or you may stay at home and only come to Hogwarts for your classes if you prefer. However I will say, that for those of you who plan to stay at home - if you start coming late to classes then your portkey privileges might be revoked, so I urge you to come to class well in time. In addition to allowing you to travel to Hogwarts we are also adding a safety feature to the portkeys that will allow you to go to the St. Mungos emergency ward in case of any accident or misfortune. For security reasons when coming to Hogwarts only the student keyed to the portkey will be allowed, but in cases of emergency - anyone touching the portkey will be taken to St. Mungos."

Quirrell smirked at the students. He knew the last one was going to blow the minds of all the muggle borns at least. "Did I say that was going to be my last announcement? I do have just one last thing. When the person comes to setup the end point of your portkey they will also help you designate an area within your house. You will need to provide an area in which you have absolute privacy. A bedroom would probably be ideal. Within this area ... you will be allowed to ... practise magic." Now this caused the loudest uproar of all. To be able to use magic over the summer. That was incredible.

"Please look at the information packets very carefully for information regarding how to practise magic safely. The Ministry will find out if there are any breaches of the Statute of Secrecy. Your right to use magic over the summer will be revoked in case of any breach. I also insist that any magic you do perform be restricted to spells that you have covered in class. Learning new spells unsupervised can be dangerous and I do not want to hear of any student ending up in St. Mungos." Quirrell finished to the sound of thunderous applause. The final announcement had won over all the students, except for a few of the purebloods who were disgruntled, but then these days who cared about what people like that thought.

oo00oo

On his way out the hall Quirrell stopped by Harry. "Mr. Potter, I've set up that meeting you wanted, so could you come by my office early tomorrow morning They'll be flooing in at 8:30 AM. We should be finished well in time for you to catch the Express."

"That's great Headmaster, I'll see you then" answered Harry.

oo00oo

The next morning Harry made his way to the Headmaster's office past the gargoyle that had standing orders to let him by whenever he wanted. It wasn't such a big deal as Quirrell had given the Gargoyle orders to let any student in, as long as he was there in the office and not in a meeting. According to him there was no point in being Headmaster if the students couldn't come see you.

"Ahh Harry I'm glad you came by early I wanted to ask you how you knew that the girl would test as highly as she did?" asked Quirrell.

"I didn't. Not for certain anyway. Let's just say I had my suspicions" said Harry.

"Keeping things close to the chest as always, can't say I disagree with that, anyway take a seat. They should be here any minute."

Just then the fire turned green and an eccentrically dressed man stepped out of the fire accompanied by a beautiful woman and a little blond girl with a dreamy expression upon her face.

"Mr. and Mrs. Lovegood, Welcome. I'm so glad you could make it in today, and this must be Luna, How are you my dear?"

"I'm quite well Headmaster, thank you for asking" answered Luna.

"Well, Mr. and Mrs. Lovegood, please take a seat, I'm sure you're wondering why I asked you'll to come in, but first meet Harry Potter, I've asked him to sit in on this meeting, I'll explain why in just a few minutes."

"Pleased to meet you Mr. Potter" said a surprised Xenophilius Lovegood. He wondered whether he take the opportunity and ask Harry for an interview. Then he reconsidered - that would be much too prosaic for his readers. They were much happier reading about the Ministries secret army of Heliopaths. Come to think of it - it was high time he did another piece on them, that and the relationship between garden gnomes and the health of ones rutabagas.

"Thank you sir, pleasures all mine I'm sure and please call me Harry" said Harry.

"Well, well, how about a cup of tea then we can get to the reason I've asked you'll all here today" said Quirrell.

"Tea would be lovely" said Mrs. Lovegood.

"Excellent, Tippy could you get tea for everyone" called out Professor Quirrel to one of Hogwarts many elves who in the blink of an eye had served everyone tea.

"Now then, as you may or may not know since I took over from Professor Dumbledore, I've been busy working on ways to upgrade the standard of education here at Hogwarts. One of the many initiatives we've taken is to have every incoming student take an IQ and magical aptitude test. These were sent out earlier this month to all students who are expected to enroll next year. As I'm sure you're aware, Miss Lovegood took one as well. Would you be interested to know, how she did?" said Quirrell.

"I'm sure she did very well, our little Luna has always been very bright" said Mrs. Lovegood.

"_'Very Well'_ would be quite the understatement Mr. Lovegood; your daughter obtained a score that was vastly higher than any other incoming student. In fact - she did so much better than all her peers that I think it would be a criminal waste of her time for her to have to suffer through first year with all the rest" said Quirrell, ignoring the fact that the girl he had just declared a genius of some sort was currently wandering around his office chatting with the various portraits.

"She did that well?" asked Mr. Lovegood. He wasn't really surprised. This was _his_ _Luna_ the man was talking about after all, but he knew that sometimes it was better to seem a little humble. In the past other parents had not reacted very well when he patiently explained to them all the reasons why his Luna was so obviously superior to their children. He was surprised at how affable the Headmaster was being, someone with so dark an aura would usually not be so nice. Just went to show really, you could never take anything for granted.

"Yes, she did. You should be very proud of her. Unfortunately one of the drawbacks of any school is that we are forced to teach at a pace that the average student can learn at. This means that bright children like Luna are often quite bored at school, which in my experience translates into them not performing to their full potential. Previously we dealt with this by using the sorting hat which simply sorted those children into Ravenclaw house where their educational requirements would hopefully be better taken care off. However from next year we will no longer have separate houses so we needed to come up with some system to better cater to our more intelligent students. Hence the IQ tests. Students who have proven to be better than average may be provided with accelerated or advanced instruction. You might call it unfair to the students left out, but if they work hard any of them could also join the advanced classes. However Luna is like we said in a league all of her own, so with your permission I'd like to carry out a little experiment" said Quirrell.

"What kind of experiment?" asked Luna's Mother looking a little worried. She did not like hearing the word experiment. Her family had not been having too much success with experiments lately. Not after the last time her husband had suggested a series of experiments - on hot days the house still smelled of aardvark and kangaroo. Then there had been the inexplicable feeling of dread the last time she was about to start working on her own spell crafting experiments. It had made it impossible for her to do her work that day. It reminded her of some dreams she had had, a long long time ago. Dreams that still gave her the chills. No, _experiment_ was not a word she currently wanted to hear.

"Mr. Potter here is our top student this year and he has graciously agreed to tutor Miss Lovegood over the summer holidays. I'd have asked some of the teachers but unfortunately I don't have the budget to cover their expenses just for one student but I will also be coming by on occasion to supervise and hopefully go over the Defence curriculum. What I'd like to do is set up some exams before the beginning of next years classes. These will be the standard ones normally given to students at the end of the first year. If Luna does well enough in these, we can go ahead and enroll her right into second year. How does that sound?" said Quirrell.

"You want the Boy-Who-Lived to tutor Luna?" said Mrs. Lovegood in a slight state of shock. "How can we say no to that? But - but - I'm still a bit worried - won't she be at a disadvantage, being a year behind the other students."

"Not at all Mrs. Lovegood, I wouldn't suggest it if I didn't think she could handle it, and besides, the worst case scenario here is that she doesn't manage to pass the exams, in which case we'll just have her join the first year as usual. I really don't see that happening though" said Quirrell.

"When you put it that way I don't see how we can possibly say no to a generous offer like that" answered Mrs. Lovegood. Mr. Lovegood was currently contemplating the feng shui of the room and thinking of the best way to improve it - perhaps a few nifflers or butterbeer corks strategically placed.

"Excellent, excellent, now I've arranged things with the Ministry, here is Miss Lovegood's exemption from the Restriction on Underage Sorcery law. This allows her to practice magic this summer as long as it's done in private without violating any of the secrecy laws" said Quirrell.

"Where would these classes be held" asked Mrs. Lovegood?

"She can come over to my godfather's house every day, or I could come over to your house if it's on the floo" said Harry.

"Yes, it is, the floo address is 'The Rookery'."

"I'm sure you'll will be able to work out those details among yourselves" said Professor Quirrel beaming brightly at all the people present in the room.

"All right then, so I can floo by your house this Monday for Luna's first lesson, if that's okay with you?" said Harry.

"That should be fine, and thank you so much for agreeing to do this" said Mrs Lovegood.

"My pleasure Mrs. Lovegood. Okay then, Luna here's my set of textbooks from last year. Do you think you can read the first chapter of each by Monday?" said Harry as he dumped a large pile of books into Luna's arms.

"Not a problem, as long as the nargles stay away" beamed Luna.

"Come on Luna, even I know that nargles are supposed to be nocturnal. So I'll expect you to have the first chapters read by then? Great, and if you can get a wand by then, that would be great" said Harry.

"We can go straight to Ollivander's after this" said Mrs. Lovegood. Mr. Lovegood wondered why Luna needed another wand, after all she had been perfectly happy using his grandmother's wand all these years. Oh well, her mother knew best after all. Best to just go with the flow.

"Great then I'll see you bright and early Monday morning" said Harry.

"See you then Harry" said an excited Luna.

"See you Luna" said Harry grinning madly at Luna as the family flooed out of the headmaster's office.

oo00oo

Note : In case anyones wondering how Luna's Mother is alive, please go back and read the first few chapters.

* I'm not sure whether it's the O level or the GCSE at this point in time, but it doesn't really make that much difference.


	22. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22.**

* * *

**Summer before second year.**

Harry, Sirius and Dudley stormed into #4 Privet drive giggling madly. They flopped down upon the couch before breaking out into gales of laughter which brought Petunia rushing into the room.

"What have you lot been up to now?" she asked in an exasperated tone. In her experience anytime the three of them laughed so much they had been up to a whole lot of trouble.

"Nothing much Mum, just breaking the hearts of a few hundred women" said Harry.

"WHAT! What have you done now?" yelled Petunia, already dreading to hear the answer.

"Shut up Harry. You're making it sound a lot worse than what it was. Let me explain before you give your Mum a heart attack" said Sirius.

"Please do" muttered Petunia.

"Okay, so there's this author called Lockheart. He's written a bunch of books which have him defeating a whole bunch of dark creatures. Bit of a ponce, but he's got all the witches swooning over him. Witch Weekly even gave him an award for most charming smile if you can believe that. Anyway, our boy here was convinced that he's a fraud and he decided that we needed to do something about it."

"And? What did you decide to do about it?"

"Nothing too drastic Mum. He had a signing today at Diagon Alley. All we did was slip a little veritaserum into his drink" said Harry.

"What exactly is veritaserum?" asked Petunia.

"It's a perfectly harmless truth serum Mum, all it does is make the person tell the truth. Nothing else" said Harry.

"I see. I take it that your plan worked?" asked Petunia.

"Yep, perfectly. The very first question someone asked him - I think it was a question about how he defeated some werewolf, had him telling the real story, all about how he wasn't the one who had defeated the werewolf. He simply interviewed the man who had and then obliviated him. You should have seen it Mum, one minute there were all these women literally drooling over him, and the next he was running from a mob of angry women who were flinging hexes at him."

"It was absolutely hysterical" giggled Sirius. "I bet he'll be arrested soon."

"So, to sum up, you decided to drug a celebrity author with a mind altering substance, and then you let him get attacked by an angry mob?" asked Petunia.

"Uh... Yes, but you're making it sound like I did something wrong" whimpered Harry, suddenly realising that he might actually be in trouble. "He was stealing peoples accomplishments Mum, and then wiping their memories."

"If you suspected that, you should have reported it to the Aurors. After all it's not like your Aunt Amelia is the head of the DMLE, now is it?" snapped Petunia.

"Uhhh..." mumbled Harry.

"And you -" said Petunia, whirling on Sirius. "I thought marriage would have given you some sense of responsibility. Just wait until I tell Amelia what you've been up to."

Sirius paled rather rapidly, he loved Amelia to bits, he really did, but his wife tended to disapprove rather strongly about pranks like this and he really, really didn't want to have to spend the night sleeping on a couch. "Petunia, um, come on, it was just a little prank. There was no harm done. Lockheart's fine. Well, until the aurors get a hold of him anyway. There really, really is no need to drag Amelia into this. Please..."

"Fine..." humphed Petunia. "However Harry and Dudley are getting grounded for a week. Is that understood Harry?"

"Yes, Mum" whimpered Harry, trying valiantly to look all innocent and pathetic. "Uhh, it's just that... I have to tutor Luna. You wouldn't make her fall behind in her studies just because I...uh..."

"Did something incredibly foolish? No, I guess not. We'll just have to have Sirius fetch her here every day. I'm sure he won't mind. Would you mind? Sirius?"

"No, No of course not. Just send her an owl with the change in plans will you Harry. Tell her I'll pick her up at 9 in the morning and apparate her here" said Sirius. He smirked to himself. Hah, he was getting off almost scot-free after all. That old Black charm was still there.

Petunia was smiling to herself as well. She thought that it had worked out rather nicely, she'd been meaning to invite Luna over for quite some time. It was high time she got to know the girl her son had been meeting every day this summer. Hmm, she really should go shopping and pick up some snacks for her. Perhaps she should bake a cake. Or a pie. It would be so lovely to have more girls around for a change. She would insist that Harry invite that Hermione girl he spoke of so often as well. That reminded her - she had to find out when Hermione would be back from her summer vacation. Hopefully she would be back in time for Harry's Birthday party. Plus she really should talk to some other parents about forming a PTA for Hogwarts. The Grangers would be a good place to start.

oo00oo

A few weeks later Harry was busy prepping for his next class with Luna when Petunia called him. He went down to find his mother happily chatting with Hermione on the phone. He quickly grabbed the phone from her before she could embarrass him.

"Hey Hermione, when did you get back? Had a good trip"

"Just got back this morning Harry and I had a great trip. How have you been?"

"Great. So you busy tomorrow?"

"No. Why?"

"How would you like to go flying?"

"Flying?"

"Yeah, you know the tutoring I was going to be doing this summer. Well, I also taught Luna how to fly and we usually spend at least an hour on our brooms everyday. There's plenty of room around her house to fly and I've managed to get a hold off a bunch of brooms. So what do you say?"

"Luna's the girl you were supposed to tutor this summer right? How's that going?"

"Pretty good. So about the flying? You'll come?" asked Harry.

"Sure, sounds like fun."

"Great, I'll come by on the Knight Bus and pick you up then. Say around four. That okay?"

"Yes."

"And while we're at it. How are you at tossing a ball?"

"A ball? Okay I guess."

"Excellent."

"Why?" asked Hermione in a slightly suspicious tone.

"Oh no reason. Just thought we should see if you could make a decent chaser."

"Harry, don't tell me you're planning on forming a Quidditch team?"

"Forming? Maybe, Maybe not. Don't have enough people yet. Joining one on the other hand should be..."

"I thought you hated Quidditch. You refused to try out last year."

"Yes, but now they've changed the bludgers so there's no risk of breaking bones. Anyway, I wanted to play as a chaser and Luna looks like she'd be great as a seeker so if we can train you up to be another chaser then we're halfway to a team right there."

"Uhh, I'm not sure Harry, I've never been very athletic..."

"Oh come on, you're twelve. Just because you've never done sports before is no reason not to give it a shot and I promise that practices won't take you away from your books for too long. Also I think that we really should give Quidditch a try or we'll be short changing ourselves out of the full Hogwarts experience."

"Okay I guess I could give it a try. But I reserve the right to drop out if it interferes with my studies."

"I promise you that it won't but you have to promise me that you'll give it your best shot."

"Okay Harry."

"Bwahhhahahha, my plan is coming together."

"Prat."

Harry hung up the phone and wondered, not for the first time, how he was going to manage the meeting of two such polar opposites as Luna and Hermione. He really wanted them to get along but he knew that left to their own devices they would inevitably rub each other the wrong way. He hoped that giving them both the common goal of learning Quidditch would be enough but most probably he would have his work cut out for him with those two. Perhaps he should start talking about all the famous eccentric geniuses with Hermione. Would that make her more tolerant of Luna's idiosyncrasies? Perhaps he should rope Hermione into Luna's tutoring sessions as well. Or would that be better left till later? Decisions, decisions. He rushed upstairs to send Hedwig to Luna with a message letting her know to expect another person tomorrow.

oo00oo

Harry was dozing on his bed when he heard a tapping sound. He opened his eyes. Moonlight was shining through the window. And someone was goggling at him: a freckle-faced, red-haired, long-nosed someone.

Ron Weasley was outside Harry's window.

"Ron!" breathed Harry, going to the window and pushing it up so they could talk. "Ron, how did you - What the - ?"

Harry's mouth fell open as the full impact of what he was seeing hit him. Ron was leaning out of the back window of an old turquoise car, which was parked in midair. Grinning at Harry from the front seats were Fred and George, Ron's elder twin brothers.

"All right, Harry?" asked George.

"What's been going on?" said Ron. "Why haven't you been answering my letters? I've asked you to stay about twelve times."

"Uhh, Ron have you any idea how much mail I get? I've had to borrow a house elf from my godfather just to deal with it. He probably just hasn't gotten around to your letters yet"

Ron's mouth fell open "B-But you never got that much mail while we were at school."

"Yeah, turned out that someone" - Dumbledore of course, "had set up a mail ward on me, only people whose owls were keyed into the ward were allowed to send me mail. I had the ward removed earlier this summer and I was drowning in letters until I had a mail redirect set up and got Dobby to deal with them. Sorry I didn't get your mail but I guess Dobby thought that it was just another fan letter so-"

"Stop gibbering," said Ron. "We've come to take you home with us."

"Guys, while I would love to visit, I've got a hopelessly busy schedule this summer, I'm tutoring someone and I'm supposed to head into London with my Mum for some shopping and - Sorry, but there's no way I can come to your home."

"Eh, that's okay Harry," said George, "at least we got to try the car out."

"Speaking of which-" Harry knew this was a bad, bad idea but somehow he just couldn't resist,"Do you suppose I could take her for a quick spin? Just around the neighbourhood."

"Why not?" said Fred, "Come on Harry, lets see how you can handle her."

Harry giggled madly as he climbed out of the window and into the driving seat of the flying car. While he had been avoiding Ron so far, a flying car, now that was seriously cool. Perhaps getting to know Ron Weasley wasn't such a bad idea after all. He turned the wheel, pointed the car at the sky and floored the accelerator.

oo00oo

**Second Year.**

Harry's second year at Hogwarts had gotten off to a great start. The portkey to the school was so much more convenient than spending all day in an archaic train. Plus once they had gotten to school they hadn't had to wait through a long boring ceremony while the first years got sorted. Luna had also managed to ace all her entrance tests and she had been placed in the same classes as Harry. Harry was feeling incredibly happy and not a little bit smug about that. This time around he would make sure that Luna had the Hogwarts experience she deserved. No one would dare to steal her possessions this time.

The new non magical classes were hard at first as he had gotten a little out of touch with the subjects but he soon caught up. Being able to head home whenever he wanted also helped a lot. There were still times when all the attention he tended to get at Hogwarts got a bit too much for him and being able to go home for a relaxing dinner with his parents was a lovely change. Petunia welcomed the change as well and was already getting Sirius to look into whether a similar arrangement could be made for Dudley. For now though the Sirius taxi service, as Sirius jokingly called it, was happy to occasionally pick up Dudley from Smeltings and apparate him home for dinner. Smeltings had been informed that Sirius was Dudley's Godfather who lived near the school and Dudley had been given permission to leave the school for the occasional dinner. With Harry being able to pop home at any time though Petunia had been worried that Dudley was being left out and was already contemplating moving him to a day school near the house. They had not made a decision yet and were waiting to see if more frequent visits could be arranged for Dudley.

He had also been lucky when it came to Quidditch. He had assumed that Wood would simply re-form the former Gryffindor team but the girls on the team had decided to form an all girl team. They were calling themselves the 'Hogwarts Harpies' and in the first match of the year had steamrolled right over Marcus Flint's team called 'The Snakes', beating them by 200 points. Since Wood had been left with just himself and the Weasley twins, Harry had managed to get not only himself but also Hermione and Neville on the team as chasers. Luna had a great tryout as well and was now the team seeker. The only thing left was the name - 'The Flying Lions', 'Wood's Warriors', 'The Red Terrors' and 'The Snorkacks' had all been rejected by the team. They were soon going to have their first game against Roger Davies team and Harry was really looking forward to it. He just hoped that someone would come up with a name they all agreed on before then.

There was still something that he felt he was forgetting though. What was it? He smacked himself in the head as he remembered and the next minute he was heading to the Headmaster's Office. Just as he was about to ask the gargoyle to let him in the door opened and Quirrell stepped out. Harry was surprised to see that he was carrying Fawkes on his arm.

"Hello Professor Quirrell. I was just coming to see you. What's Fawkes doing here?"

"I have absolutely no idea. The damn bird keeps flaming into my office and singing at me. I keep moving him to the Owlery but he keeps coming back. Do you have any idea how hard it is to concentrate on paperwork while a phoenix is singing?" said Quirrell in an exceptionally irritated tone.

"But, why is he here? Wasn't he Dumbledore's familiar? You'd think he'd be trying to get into Azkaban or something."

"They warded Azkaban against phoenix travel so he wouldn't be able to get to Dumbledore anyway. Why he keeps coming back to my office is something only he can answer and unless you know someone who can speak bird..."

Harry looked at Fawkes, the bird seemed to be amused about something.

"You don't suppose he's spying for Dumbledore, do you?" asked Harry

Fawkes managed to look quite insulted at the thought of him being a spy. He seemed to be glaring at Harry.

"I doubt that. Dumbledore would have had to come up with a telepathic means of communication with a Phoenix for that to be possible. I've already checked him for scrying or eavesdropping charms and as far as I can tell he's quite clean of any enchantments. Perhaps he's simply coming back to a place that is familiar to him."

"You could always ward your office against him" suggested Harry.

"I felt that would be needlessly cruel. No, sooner or later Fawkes will learn to get used to the Owlery."

"I wonder... Have you considered that he was never Dumbledore's familiar. Perhaps he's simply likes living at the school."

"Conjecture of that sort is quite useless. As I said before we have no real way of knowing his motives." By now they had reached the Owlery and Quirrell deposited Fawkes on one of the many perches. "Please stay here this time Fawkes. I'll have the elves get you some really delicious treats if you behave. You'd like some nice crispy bacon wouldn't you?" said Quirrell to the bird. Fawkes managed to look quite indignant, as if he was insulted at being treated like a common owl.

"Now Harry" said Quirrell as they made their way back into the castle. "What was it you wanted to talk to me about?"

"I just remembered the basilisk and I was wondering whether we needed to do something about it?"

"Bessy? She's fine, I checked up on her over the summer. Got a dozen sheep for her to feed on. She's safely back in hibernation now."

"Wait, hold on just a sec. You named her BESSY? A giant snake that can kill you by just looking at you, and you called it Bessy?"

"Well, she seemed to like it" said Quirrell in a defensive tone.

"Bessy..." muttered Harry. "Bessy... He calls it Bessy...like it's a bloody cow...Bessy the bloody basilisk. Unbelievable." Getting himself back on track, Harry asked "Well, what I actually wanted to ask you was - Do you think it's safe to have something like that in school."

"Of course Potter, don't forget that she's been in the chamber for hundreds of years. Salazar meant her to be a final defensive measure for the school. She's perfectly safe as long as she's in hibernation. I certainly am not going to wake her up while there are any children in the castle and since the only other person who could possibly get into the chamber is you... Well, I'm sure you are not stupid enough to go into the chamber."

"Still, remember Myrtle. Can we be certain that it's safe?"

"I think of Myrtle every single day Potter, however we are talking about a magnificent creature that has been in the school since it was founded. What would you have me do? Kill it? Set it free in the Forbidden Forest? I will most certainly not do anything like that. Don't forget I am under a vow not to put any child in danger. Do you think I would be able to stand here if there was truly any danger?"

"I guess not. Well, if you think it's safe - that's good enough for me. I'll bid you goodnight then."

"Goodnight Harry."

Harry hurried off back to his dorm room where he still preferred to spend some nights of the week, mainly because it was a lot easier to get your homework done when there were others doing it right besides you. If anyone had been close enough to him they would have have heard the occasional mumbled "Bessy...He named it Bessy..."

oo00oo

Hermione turned around as she saw a flash of red out of the corner of her eye. She thought she heard a squeak before the sound of running footsteps was heard.

"Who's that little red headed girl that keeps following us around Harry?"

"No bloody clue, probably just another fan girl. Maybe one of the Weasleys judging by the hair colour" said Harry.

"Fan girl? Really?"

"Well, it's either that, or she's got a major crush on you Hermione"

"Prat" said Hermione as she smacked him lightly on the arm.

"Ouch! Careful there, I need my arm to be in good shape for Quidditch."

"Speaking of Quidditch, let's go get Luna and Neville and hit the pitch. I really need to work on my passing with you" said Hermione.

Harry grinned as he followed Hermione. Once he had gotten Hermione interested in Quidditch it hadn't taken long for the girls competitive nature to take over. She was now hell bent on scoring more goals than him in every single match and at the rate she was improving she would soon get her wish.

oo00oo


	23. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23**

* * *

**Third Year**

She pulled out of her dive, her hand in the air, and the stadium exploded. Luna soared above the crowd, the tiny golden ball was held tight in her fist, beating its wings hopelessly against her fingers.

Then Wood was speeding toward her, half-blinded by tears; he seized Luna around the neck and sobbed unrestrainedly into her shoulder. Luna felt two large thumps as Harry and Hermione hit them; then Fred's, George's, and Neville's voices, "We've won the Cup! We've won the Cup!"

Tangled together in a many-armed hug, the team sank, yelling hoarsely, back to earth.

**~oo00oo~**

**Summer before Fourth Year**

Ludo Bagman, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports and former Beater for the Winbourne Wasps, flooed into the Headmaster's Office to find Sirius Black and Quirinus Quirrell waiting for him. Ludo was extremely busy these days due to the upcoming World Cup but he was not one to focus on only his current task. No, Ludo was ambitious and he wanted a spectacular follow up to the World Cup. Something that would keep the galleons rolling in. With that in mind he had submitted a proposal to the Ministry that the Triwizard Tournament be resurrected this year. Organising another international event would certainly add a feather to his cap, and hopefully several thousand galleons to his pockets with the bets he planned on placing. Now he found himself coming to Hogwarts to discuss the tournament with the Headmaster and Black who was representing the Governors.

"Ahh Mr. Bagman, do make yourself comfortable. It was so good of you to come in. I know you must be very busy with the upcoming tournament" said Quirrell.

"Thank you for having me Professor, and please call me Ludo. Did you have a chance to go over my proposal?"

"Of course Ludo, but first - would you like some tea?" asked Quirrell.

"Yes, thank you. Tea would be lovely."

A short time later once everyone had the prerequisite cup of tea in their hands Sirius started off the discussion.

"Ludo, let me just start off by saying that I think a tournament is an excellent idea. It would certainly help in international relationships and would also give our students the invaluable opportunity to meet and learn from students from the other schools."

"Excellent" said a beaming Bagman.

"However, we are not too happy with the format of the tournament and we would like to see some minor changes" said Quirrell.

"Really? Like what?" asked a surprised Bagman.

"The current tasks, especially the first one, are far too dangerous. I mean, Dragons. What were you thinking Ludo? Dragons? Really?" said Sirius.

"Traditionally the first task has always involved some sort of dangerous creature" answered Bagman.

"Yes, and there is a reason why the Triwizard Tournament was discontinued Ludo. I don't suppose you remember what that is? Do you?" asked Quirrell.

"Yes, b-but I've outlined steps to make it safer. We will only be allowing of age students to compete which means that they should be able to handle all the tasks" said Bagman.

"Unfortunately that's not the only problem we have with the tasks. The second task for example is simple enough. A first year could probably handle it if they used Gillyweed. The problem is - have you thought about the audience at all? You would have them staring at a lake for an hour. Not much excitement or interest in that, is there? Then you would have them staring at some hedges for the final task, totally unable to see the champions compete" said Sirius.

"Uhhh" said Bagman, his mind a total blank. He had not thought about these points at all.

"Finally why do we need the Goblet of Fire at all. If the teachers at our school cannot choose the most qualified from among our students then we would have to be quite incompetent. Why do we need a magical artefact to select a champion? Especially one that imposes a dangerous contract upon the champions? What if one of the champions has an accident while training and is unable to compete? Your goblet would have him or her paying a penalty for breaking the contract. No, I see no reason for the goblet at all" said Quirrell.

"Yes, I quite see your point" said a defeated Bagman. "So how do you think the tournament should be structured?"

"To start with, let us do away with the Goblet, also instead of simply selecting one champion from each school - I would like to have teams participating. We should also base the events around our school curriculum. For example we could have a Potions challenge where teams from each school will be provided with a blended poison. The team that comes up with the antidote first wins. Of course we will have to set some rules - we wouldn't want a student to win by simply slapping down a bezoar after all" said Quirrell.

"Yes, that does sound like an interesting challenge, not much excitement for the audience though" said Bagman.

"Oh, I'm sure we can balance that out in the other events. We could have a Transfiguration competition where points will be based on the intricacy, difficulty level and sheer showmanship of the transfiguration performed" said Quirrell.

"We absolutely must have a Quidditch event as well" said Sirius.

"Are you sure that is wise?" asked Bagman. "Victor Krum attends Durmstrang and he's a World Cup player. The best seeker in the world. Any team that Hogwarts could put up would be slaughtered."

"Viktor Krum is precisely the reason we must have Quidditch matches. Think back to when you were in school Ludo. What would you have given for a chance to play against a World Cup class player? It's a tremendous learning opportunity for all of our Quidditch players" said Sirius.

"I also think we should have an event that focuses purely on our theory subjects as well. Something that covers History, Arithmancy, Runes etcetera" said Quirrell.

"But ... what kind of event could possibly cover all those subjects?" asked a bewildered Bagman.

"Have you ever seen one of those quiz shows?" said Quirrel.

"Q-Quiz Shows?" said Bagman

"Yes, I must say ever since Sirius here introduced me to Television I have gotten quite addicted to Quiz Shows. I find them absolutely fascinating" answered Quirrell.

"Tally Vision?" asked Bagman.

"Yes, it's quite simple really. We will have one team from each school. A presenter will ask a question and whichever team answers correctly will get a point" said Quirrell. "What do you think Sirius, should we have buzzers or just have them take turns answering questions?" said Quirrell.

"I've always liked the buzzers. Adds a bit of excitement. Oh ... and can we have a rapid fire round?" said Sirius.

"Buzzers? Rapid Fire? W-What..." asked a totally confused Bagman.

"You can leave that to me Ludo, I'll write up a format for the Quiz event" said Sirius.

"That would certainly be helpful. Do you suppose we could have a duelling tournament as well?" said Bagman.

"No, No, out of the question. That would be far too dangerous" answered Quirrell.

"One last thing - I'm not too happy with your list of proposed judges. I sincerely doubt that the Heads of each school can truly be unbiased when it comes too a competition of this nature. I think we should get in more judges from outside. Perhaps some delegates from the ICW?" said Sirius.

"The Flamels owe me a favour for saving their stone. I should be able to persuade them to act as two of the Judges" said Quirrell.

"That would be an excellent idea" said Sirius.

"Well, I think that covers nearly everything. Don't you agree Ludo?" asked Quirrell.

"Yes, Yes... Quite. I shall rework the proposal for the tournament immediately" answered Bagman before bidding them goodbye and making a hasty exit through the fireplace.

"Well, that went all right. Don't you think?" asked Quirrell.

"Yes, this year should be quite eventful. By the way what are you going to do about the Quidditch team. Harry's team won the last Quidditch cup last year and since Wood graduated the team has elected him as Captain for this year. Are you going to ask his team to play for Hogwarts?" asked Sirius.

"No, I think it would be better for the Quidditch coaches to have school wide tryouts for each position. We must field the best players in the school. I'm sure he should be able to get selected regardless. How is Harry anyway? I haven't heard from him much this summer" said Quirrell.

"Oh, the Grangers, Lovegoods and Dursleys are all on holiday together. Amelia and I were supposed to go as well but she got busy with some business over at the DMLE. Xeno's dragged them all off on a camping trip. Something about looking for Crumpled Torn Snot Rags... Snorkels? Something like that anyway" said Sirius. "Speaking of Harry, I've been thinking he really needs to expand his horizons a bit. Perhaps when the students from the other schools arrive you could assign a student liaison. Someone to show them around Hogwarts, act as a native guide so to speak. I think Harry would make a very good liaison for the Beauxbatons students."

"Does this have anything to do with the rumours that there are Veela students attending Beauxbatons?" asked Quirrell. By now he knew Sirius very well and knew exactly how the man's mind worked.

"Of course it does. Harry needs to work on his flirting skills desperately. This will be an excellent chance for that" answered Sirius.

Quirrell chuckled. "Of course Sirius, at worst it should be terribly amusing to watch and I'm sure that the Beauxbatons students will be pleased at having him as a liaison. The boy is still very famous after all."

"Glad you agree, and one last thing before I go - We're all planning to attend the World Cup together. I've reserved a box. I hope you'll be able to make it as well" asked Sirius.

"I would love to come. Thank you for inviting me" answered Quirrell.

"Great, see you there then. Well then, I'm heading to Gringotts. Harry's convinced me that the Irish are going to win with Krum catching the Snitch and I'm off to lay a large bet with the goblins. Want me to place one for you as well?" asked Sirius.

"Hmmm, the Irish to win even though Bulgaria gets the snitch, the odds on that should be nice and high. Put me down for a hundred" answered Quirrell.

Sirius left through the floo and Quirrell sighed - a headmaster's job was never done. He now had to go and check on Hagrid. The man was simply incapable of acting rationally when it came to animals. He was currently breeding some experimental animals from manticores and fire crabs, something called a blast-ended skrewt, and Quirrell had to go and put a stop to it. Why, oh why did he have to be saddled with a half giant with all the temperament and sense of a five year old? Thank god he had managed to hire Grubbly-Plank full time after Kettleburn retired. Without her to watch over Hagrid, he shuddered to think what the man would get up to.

Just then Fawkes flamed into the office, perched himself on Quirrell's shoulder and started preening Quirrell's hair whilst singing. Quirrell sighed again, some days he just couldn't catch a break.

**~oo00oo~**

**Fourth Year**

It had been a great year so far for Harry. Students from Beauxbatons and Durmstrang were visiting Hogwarts for the tournament and he had become friendly with several of the Beauxbatons students, not the least of which was the beautiful Fleur Delacour. He had also gotten selected for the Hogwarts Quidditch team as a chaser. He had contemplated trying out for the seeker position, just so that he would get a chance to fly against Victor Krum but had then decided that he had a lot more fun playing as a chaser. It certainly beat flying around looking for a tiny golden mosquito for the entire game and with a bit of luck they might be able to recreate the Irish victory by racking up the score before Victor caught the snitch.

Now though, he had something vastly more important on his mind. Quirrell had informed him that the Yule Ball was to be announced soon and he had to nail down his date for the ball. With that in mind he ran straight to the library where he knew he would be most likely to find the girls he wanted to speak to. He paused at the entrance to gather his thoughts. He found that he was incredibly nervous. Damn his other self, why couldn't the idiot have spent some more time asking girls out. No, he had to have memories of a guy who was bloody clueless when it came to women. And no, Ginny didn't count. Getting a girl who's had a crush on you for years to date you is not a great achievement. Utterly disastrous dates with Parvati and Cho. Never even thinking of asking Hermione out. Ignoring Luna at Slughorn's party and following Malfoy around instead and ... and ... worst of all - jumping out from under the mistletoe after Luna pointed it out. Argghhhh, how could anybody be so dumb? Well, he would do better this time... Once he calmed down and his heart stopped hammering. He was having a bloody heart attack, yes that was it, maybe he should go visit Madam Pomfrey. A week or two in the Hospital Wing would be a nice break.

"Calm yourself. Deep breaths, that's the ticket" he thought. "Just remember what Sirius and Dad taught you and you'll be fine. Now what was the most important bit. Oh yeah, be cocky and funny and fake it till you make it. I am calm and confident and irresistible to women. Calm, confident and irresistible, just keep telling yourself that. Okay then, time to put up or shut up, lets go do this." He caught a sight of his reflection in the highly polished wood of the door - "Damn, I really wish I could get that hair to settle down." He tried to pat it down to make it look neater but gave it up as hopeless. "Enough procrastinating, time to roll the dice" he thought as he entered the library.

Harry plonked himself down in front of Hermione and Luna who were studying together in the library.

"How are my two favourite witches doing today?" he asked, keeping his voice low so that Madam Pince would not get annoyed.

"We're fine Harry, what's got you looking so excited?" said Luna, "Infestation of wrackspurts?"

"Well, I just had it confirmed that we're going to have a Yule Ball this year" answered Harry, his voice cracking slightly before he got it under control.

"Really, where did you hear that?" asked Hermione.

"From the Headmaster, he's going to be announcing it tomorrow morning, I'd asked him to give me a heads up, as a favour, before he announced it to the whole school so that I would have the chance to get a date" said Harry.

"Now why did you need to do that?" asked Hermione.

"Well, the girls I have my eye on are so jaw-droppingly beautiful that as soon as the ball is announced there's going to be a line of guys waiting to ask them out. This way I beat the rush and get a jump on the competition" explained Harry.

"Harry, you know that any girl in the school would be more than happy to go out with you" said Hermione deciding to be supportive of her best friend. He probably just needed some advice on how to ask a girl out. The bloody git. He probably wanted to ask that stuck up French girl to the ball. The idiot... No, she would be supportive, yes she would, she was a nice person, not a shred of jealousy in her, no not at all.

"So that's a yes then? What about you Luna?" asked Harry

"Wait, What? Did you just ask me out?" said a flabbergasted Hermione.

"Yes, I'd be incredibly honoured if you and Luna would agree to be my dates to the ball?" said Harry.

"Both of us? Harry you're supposed to go with one girl, not two" said Hermione.

"Where does it say that Hermione? Come on, ever since Luna joined in second year the three of us have always done everything together. So please, please, pretty please say you'll come to the ball with me" said Harry.

"Uhh, what about that Beauxbatons girl you've been spending so much time with? The one that's had all the boys drooling after her. I thought you'd be jumping to ask her out" snapped Hermione. She had been more than a little jealous of all the time Harry had been spending with the girl in question.

"Fleur? She's just a friend Hermione, you know that. Anyway, she was just being kind enough to help me out with some lessons I needed to make sure you'll have a good time at the ball" said Harry.

"Lessons? What kind of lessons?" said Hermione.

"Oh you know, dancing and ...ahem... other stuff" said Harry nervously.

"Other stuff? Hmm, in that case - I'm definitely in" said Luna in a dreamy tone.

"What? Why?" said Hermione in a suspicious tone.

"Come on Hermione, he's gotten lessons from a French part Veela. Aren't you curious to find out just what he's learned. Especially as..." and here Luna broke off to whisper in Hermione's ear.

"WHAT? You really think he's been getting lessons in ki..." asked Hermione.

"Yep. Have you ever known Harry not to be totally prepared for any situation?" said Luna.

"Uhhh, I guess in that case I'm in as well. Although I'm not sure I'm happy about your so called 'lessons'. I still think you should be going with just one girl. That's the way it's supposed to be done" said Hermione

"Come on Hermione, when do we ever do what's supposed to be done? That's just so boring, to always do what's expected. I mean you could go out with someone else, I know tons of boys will be trying to get you to go with them, but then you have no guarantee that you'll have a good time. And why would you inflict the company of some other boy on yourself or Luna? What if they turn out to be horrendous bores? This way at least you know it's going to be a fun night. I guarantee it" said Harry as confidently as he could. "Calm and Confident" he repeated to himself.

"Fine, Fine, I'll go with you" humphed Hermione.

"Excellent" said Harry, grinning away. He was exceptionally pleased and quite a bit surprised that they both had agreed. He hadn't wanted to choose between them and he didn't want to ask anyone else out either. He had really been expecting only one of them to agree and part of him had been convinced that they would both refuse. For both of them to agree was ... was ... nerve-racking ... wonderful ... exciting ... terrifying ... fantastic? He couldn't really decide but was currently leaning towards terrifying.

"Didn't you mention jaw-droppingly beautiful a while back? I think if we're going to be going to the ball with you then both Hermione and I deserve to hear some more along those lines" said Luna giving Harry a bit of a start. He had not really been expecting that. He needed to come up with more compliments? Oh dear. What had Sirius suggested? Poetry, right ... lets give that a shot.

"All righty then, where should I start? Shall I compare thee to a summers day?" asked Harry.

"A bit clichéd, but I think that's a good start, go on" said Hermione blushing an appealing pink.

"I'm not sure comparing me to a summers day is entirely appropriate, after all my name is Luna" announced Luna, deciding that she wasn't going to make this that easy for him. "So what if he was her best friend and really the only one she would want to go to the ball with...and handsome ... with lovely lovely green eyes and those... Hmmm... Yummy... What had she been thinking about again? Something about making him have to work hard for ... oh but he did have really lovely eyes" she mused.

"Good point, so I'd take it that something moon related would work better for you? Unfortunately, uhh... nothing really comes to mind right now" said Harry.

"I don't mind, I can wait for you to come up with something" said Luna. Maybe she would get him to write a poem about nargles. Hmm, that was a thought. It would be hysterical to see what he came up with.

"Looks like I have my work cut out for me then" said Harry.

"Still want to ask both of us to the ball then?" said Hermione, smiling as she caught on to what Luna was up to.

"Of course. Anything good is worth working for after all" said Harry. "Wait, I think I have one- She walks in beauty, like the night, Of cloudless climes and starry skies."

"Nah, you need to keep looking, the girl in that poem is supposed to have raven hair which doesn't describe either Luna or me" said Hermione.

"Curses, foiled again" said Harry, "But you know, something just occurred to me, If I can't compare you to a summers day because your first name is Luna and you said you'd like something associated with your name correct."

"Yes," said Luna.

"Oh Oh" thought Hermione.

"And ... your last name is Lovegood. Doesn't that just open up a vast array of possibilities?" said Harry with a broad grin.

"Why yes, yes it does" said Luna brightly.

"Oh look, Madam Pince is glaring at us, we'll have to continue this some other time" said Hermione desperately hoping to stave off the hurricane of incredibly corny Love Good puns that she was sure Harry was about to unleash.

**~oo00oo~**

After Luna and Hermione got back to the fourth year dorms, Luna dragged Hermione up to their room, pulled her to sit cross legged on her bed, shut the curtains and cast a few privacy and silencing charms so that they couldn't be overheard.

"Luna... What..." said Hermione.

"We've got to discuss the Harry situation Hermione" said Luna.

"What's to discuss? Like he said - we've been doing everything together since second year. This is just more of the same" said Hermione.

"No, Hermione this is totally different" said Luna. "This is a date Hermione, and if we're both going to Harry's girlfriends at the same time, then we should discuss it. Don't you agree?"

"Hold on" said Hermione, blushing away. "Who said anything about girlfriends? We're just going to the ball together as friends. Right?"

"Wrong. You don't start quoting poetry and showering compliments on someone who you're 'just friends' with. I thought you would have known that" said Luna.

"Still, its still just one ball, that doesn't mean we're both going to be dating him and being his girlfriends" said Hermione.

"Yes, I know he wasn't really expecting both of us to agree to go with him, that was rather obvious but still..."

"Wait just a tic. What do you mean he wasn't expecting us to agree? Why did he ask us then?" said Hermione.

"Hermione, please. Didn't you see his face when we both said yes. I was tempted to toss my quill at him to see if it would knock him over" said Luna.

"But ... then, why did he ask both of us?" asked Hermione.

"Hermione, clearly Harry is suffering from a severe infestation of wrackspurts. For some reason he either won't or can't choose between us so he tried to make us do the choosing for him. I mean really, do you really think Harry is the type of boy who tries for a ménage à trois?" said Luna.

This time Hermione's blush could have lit up the room. Where did Luna get these ideas from? Honestly. A ména... She couldn't even think of the phrase without suffering from an acute case of embarrassment.

"So he asked both of us to the ball, but expects us to decide amongst ourselves who actually gets to go?" asked Hermione.

"Probably, but I don't think we should do that" said Luna.

"Uhh, why not?" asked Hermione. This conversation was so far out of her comfort zone that it wasn't funny.

"I know we both want to date him and I don't see why we should strain our friendship. After all if only one of us gets to go out with him then the other is bound to resent it. So obviously we're going to have to share him" explained Luna far too reasonably for Hermione's taste. Shouldn't the other girl have been a little outraged at the concept?

"I never said I want to date him" protested Hermione.

"Oh come on. It's obvious you do. There's no point in denying it" said Luna.

"Okay, maybe I do. Still even if we both go ... we would still end up resenting each other. Maybe not now but eventually" said Hermione.

"Maybe, but if we're careful that doesn't have to happen for quite some years. Maybe not ever, if we do it right. You're my best friend, apart from Harry, after all" said Luna. "We just need a scrupulously fair way to decide things. A way to decide things like ... like who gets the first kiss" said Luna.

"K-kissing, b-but..." stammered Hermione.

"Hermione, It's the Yule Ball, if things go well, our first dates should end with a kiss. Don't you agree? So who gets to go first. I know, lets do Rock-Parchment-Wand to decide. Agreed... Good, so on three. One, two, three..." Luna stuck out a fist and Hermione stuck out a finger.

"Yay, rock breaks wand so I get the first kiss. Just to be fair though, since I get the first kiss you can have the first dance. Is that fair?" said Luna.

"Uhh... I guess so" said Hermione.

"Just one last thing though, I don't think we should let Harry know about our little agreement. Either he'll freak out or he'll get way too smug. So - no telling" said Luna.

"Okay" said Hermione, only too happy to agree to the last point. There was no way she would ever discuss any of this with anyone else. She suddenly had a truly horrific thought. How would she tell her parents about this? - "_Dear Mum, My friends have gone insane and I find myself actually buying into their insanity. Please help. Love Hermione_"

"Yay. Now, I thought we should get him to write us some original poetry and carry our books for us everyday. What do you think we should get him to do?" asked Luna.

**~oo00oo~**


	24. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24**

* * *

It was a very confused Harry Potter that portkeyed home the next evening.

"Mummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm" he yelled out as soon as he landed in his bedroom.

"What? Harry? Is that you?" yelled back Petunia from somewhere in the house.

Harry rushed downstairs to find Petunia in the kitchen in the middle of preparing dinner.

"I - I think I need a woman's perspective on things" muttered Harry.

"Really?" said Petunia. "Why, what's happened?"

"I - I - I'm not really sure exactly..." said Harry as he sat down at the dinner table. Perhaps he should talk to Sirius instead. Sirius would know what to do. Wouldn't he? On the other hand... Listening to Sirius was part of the reason he was in this mess to begin with. No, he should get his Mum's advice first, this time.

"Why don't you start at the beginning" said Petunia gently. "Did something happen at school?"

"Yes-Yes and I have no idea what to do..." wailed Harry.

"Well, why don't you start by telling me what happened" said Petunia.

"I told you about the ball, right?"

"Yes, you said you were going to ask Hermione or Luna. What happened did they both turn you down?" asked Petunia.

"No, they-they both agreed to go with me" said Harry.

"WHAT? Harry Dursley! How could you? You mean to tell me you're two timing those sweet girls" shouted a flabbergasted Petunia.

"No-No Mum, it's not like that. I swear. I just asked them both out at the same time and then they both said yes so we're all going to go together" said Harry.

"Oh, I'm sorry Harry. I shouldn't have jumped to conclusions like that. But... What's the problem then? If they're both going with you then obviously they want to go as friends. Yes, I'm sure it is a bit disappointing. I'm disappointed as well. They're both such sweet girls and I was hoping that you would start dating one of them but I'm sure that that will happen..." said Petunia.

"That's what I thought at first. I figured they didn't understand that I was asking them out on a date. I figured only one of them would say yes... Then they both said yes...so I thought..." Harry trailed off, not quite sure how he was going to explain his reasons for asking them both out.

"So what happened then?" asked Petunia.

"Then this morning, they both insisted that I had to start carrying their books for them. Luna said it was traditional. I have no idea what she meant by that. They even got me an bag charmed to be lighter and bigger on the inside so I could carry everything. Then in the library they both sat on either side of me and insisted that I had to hold both their hands - at the same time. And Luna said I had to write her poetry and Hermione said she wanted me to get a haircut...They even said they want me to take them to Madam Puddifoots for tea. And and and... I have no idea what they're up to, they're acting like they both want to be my girlfriends at the same time but that can't be right. Can it? And it's too embarrassing to just come out and ask them" said Harry.

"Madam Puddifoots? Isn't that the lovely little tea shop we stopped at when your father and I came to Hogwarts last month for the Parent Teacher meetings?" asked Petunia. Thanks to Professor Quirrell and the efforts of Harry and Sirius, non-magical parents had finally been allowed to visit Hogwarts, and Petunia and Vernon had been travelling there for Parent Teacher meetings and Quidditch games for quite some time.

"Yes, but Mum you're not getting it, Madam Puddifoots is where the students go when they want to go to someplace ... you know ... romantic" said Harry filling the word with all the scorn and dread that a fourteen year old boy had for the concept.

"Oh. Oh dear" said Petunia, trying her level best to stifle the giggles that were threatening to burst forth from her. Who would have thought that her usually so self assured son would have been driven to such a state of panic. At least it was caused by Hermione and Luna. She knew the two girls very well and was absolutely certain that neither of them would ever be unkind to Harry. On the other hand, she would never have imagined that both of them would decide to date him at the same time. She couldn't even really blame Harry for this ... this rather unconventional relationship. Really, what was he thinking though ... asking both of them out at the same time? Oh dear, what if Dudley got the same idea? She suddenly wished that she had had two girls instead. Girls would never get into this kind of trouble. Would they?

**~o00o~**

It was the night of the Yule Ball and Harry was checking out his reflection in the mirror. Just then there was a knock on his bedroom door and Vernon and Petunia walked in.

"You all set there Harry?" asked Vernon.

"Oh, my baby is looking so grown up and handsome" cooed Petunia as her eyes teared up a little. "I can't believe he's already going to his first formal dance."

"You got everything you need Harry?" asked Vernon.

"Yes, Dad" answered Harry.

"Didn't forget to spray on some cologne?" asked Vernon.

"Nope" answered Harry.

"Don't forget the corsages for Hermione and Luna" said Petunia.

"Got them right here" said Harry.

"Okay, then what else do you need? Got the portkeys to the Granger and Lovegood houses?" asked Vernon.

"Yep, going to take one to Hermione's house first, then we'll take the one to Luna's and from there we'll just use our usual school portkeys to head to Hogwarts" said Harry.

"Good good" said Vernon. "Now don't forget to tell them that they look nice when you see them. Make sure you treat them well. Open doors and pull chairs and all that stuff. Understand?"

"Yes, Dad" said Harry.

"If you're all ready can you hurry up and come down, I want to take some pictures" said Petunia.

"Mummmmmmmmmm" whined Harry.

"Go on down and set up the camera Pet. I just want to have one last word with Harry before he leaves" said Vernon. He waited until Petunia left the room then turned to Harry again. He was shaking his head rather ruefully.

"Harry, I've been thinking about some of the advice I've given you about girls and quite frankly I don't think any of it applies to your current situation" said Vernon.

Harry was confused. "What exactly are you talking about Dad?"

"Well, it's this whole going with two girls things. Remember when I told you - you should try to get your date alone and give her a kiss. How will you do that when you're with two girls? You definitely can't try and get only one of them alone, because if you do then the other one is going to feel left out. Her feelings will get hurt if you do that and I didn't bring you up to be callous when it comes to others feelings" said Vernon.

"No, No you didn't. You're absolutely right about that. I don't want to hurt either of them" said Harry.

"Good, so since I really have no idea how you should approach this ball, don't follow any of my previous advice and for that matter forget everything that Sirius ever told you as well. Try playing it by ear. Make sure you give both of them an equal amount of attention.I think that's probably the most important bit" said Vernon.

"Okay Dad" said Harry. Crap, all his plans for the night had to be shelved. What was he supposed to do now? Just winging it sounded much much too dangerous for something as important as this.

"Come on then, your Mums going to want to take a lot of photos before you leave. Best to get it over with" said Vernon.

After Petunia had taken what seemed like a hundred photos and Harry had endured Dudley's good-natured ribbing on his dress robes, Harry was finally able to head out. The first stop was Hermione's house, a rather lovely suburban home, where he and Hermione, who was looking exceptionally lovely that night, both had to once again endure another photo session. They then headed to Luna's house, a strange building that looked like someone had cast an engorgement charm on a rook from a chess set. Unfortunately for Harry, his cognitive abilities, which had already taken a severe hit after he saw Hermione in all her finery, took another deadly blow at the sight of Luna. At that point he was barely able to make any kind of small talk at all with Luna's parents. Luckily for him, it wasn't the first time he was meeting them or they would most likely have thought him to be an extremely dim-witted boy. Luna's parents had their camera out as well, and by the time the three of them managed to activate their portkeys to Hogwarts, Harry was certain that he never wanted to see another camera again for as long as he lived. He was still seeing the spots caused by the camera flashes as his portkey deposited him within his dorm at Hogwarts. The portkeys were set to take each student directly to their dorm rooms so the girls would be deposited in theirs and would have to meet him in the common room.

Harry landed lightly on his feet. Taking a portkey back and forth every other day had long gotten him over the problems he had initially had with them. These days they didn't even make him dizzy any more. A few seconds after he landed, Neville materialised near his bed as well.

"Hey Nevvie, all set for the ball?" asked Harry.

Neville gave a huge grin at Harry. "Yep, time to see whether all those dancing lessons are going to pay off."

"Did you pick up Hannah at her house? Or are you meeting her straight here?" asked Harry.

"She told me to just meet her here in the common room. Said something about it being easier that way" said Neville.

"Smart girl. I'm still seeing spots from all the photos that everyone insisted on taking" said Harry.

"Hah, well serves you right for taking two girls at the same time. Just think, if you had only asked one of them out then that would have been one less..."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah" interrupted Harry.

"He he, you should have seen Ron's face when he heard you were taking two girls to the ball. Went on and on about how you always get everything. Didn't help that he couldn't get a date at all" laughed Neville.

"Hey, it's not like the git's ever even spoken more than two words to either Luna or Hermione. Not like he had any chance with them, even if I wasn't taking them. Not after the way he made a fool of himself over Fleur" said Harry.

"Yeah, what was he thinking?" asked Neville. "I need a date. What's the best way of getting one. I know, I'll run up to the incredibly hot, not to mention, older girl, yell at her and then run away. He he. The poor bugger really managed to turn himself into a laughing stock. Not like any girl would want to go out with the school clown" chuckled Neville.

"So shall we head down?" asked Harry as he started walking out of the dorm. Neville followed him a half second later.

"So, you prepared for the game against Durmstrang?" asked Neville.

"As prepared as I can be. By the way, let's not talk about Quidditch in front of the girls. They're both still pissed off that they're only reserves" said Harry.

"They bloody should be pissed off" growled Neville. "We won the quidditch cup last year. They should have just let us field our team as is. Hermione's an awesome chaser and Luna's a way better seeker than Diggory."

"I know that, you know that, hell even the coaches know that. I think they're just terrified at the thought of sending a thirteen year old girl up against Krum. Same with Hermione really, I think they're expecting the Durmstrang team to play really rough" said Harry.

"Oh come on, that no excuse and you know it" said Neville.

"Of course I do" said Harry, "but short of arranging for Diggory to break his leg just before the match there's really nothing I can do."

"Hey, that's an idea" exclaimed Neville. "Shouldn't be that hard to arrange either."

"Yeah, why don't you get right on that. Don't blame me when all the girls that moon over him decide to turn you into a punching bag. Come on Neville, Diggory's a...well...you know how he is. He's like the quintessential Hufflepuff. If we still had Hufflepuffs that is. You couldn't find a nicer guy in the entire school" said Harry.

By now the two boys had reached the common room where they sat down on the couch to wait for their dates. There were quite a few others also there waiting for their dates and Harry had to spend a few minutes greeting them.

"Okay, so maybe that's not the best idea" conceded Neville. "Where are the girls anyway?"

"They should be down any minute" said Harry, hoping that the girls wouldn't take too long in their dorms. Luckily for him he didn't have to wait long as the girls soon entered the room in a swirl of perfume and silk. Neville's mouth dropped open at the sight of Hannah in her ball gown and Harry got to smirk at the sight of his friend as he blushed and stammered out greetings to her. "I hope I didn't look that stupid when I saw Hermione and Luna" thought Harry before sighing - "Oh dear, I did, didn't I."

**~o00o~**

Harry, Hermione and Luna exited the Great Hall giggling and laughing. The three of them had had a wonderful time at the ball. The girls had not let Harry sit out a single dance and they had stayed until the band packed up for the night. They were among the last to leave and there were hardly any other people around as they made their way to the Hogwarts doors.

"We'll have to walk outside the Hogwarts wards. The portkeys I got to your homes won't work from inside Hogwarts" said Harry.

"We could just take our usual school portkeys home from here Harry. You don't have to drop us all the way home" said Hermione.

"Uh okay, if you think that's a better idea" said Harry.

"Yes, that would be fine but first, we do have one last thing to do" said Luna as she looked around the deserted hallway. There was no one else around at the time. This was a perfect time to do it she thought.

"What did you want to do ... umphhhhh" cried Harry as he was interrupted by Luna launching herself at him, wrapping her arms around his head and pulling his lips down into a kiss. She proceeded to thoroughly snog Harry for the next few minutes. Moments that were over far too soon for the messy haired teen.

"Oooh" Luna moaned,"that was nice, really really nice. Okay Hermione, your turn" she said as she stepped back and pushed Hermione towards Harry.

Harry had barely recovered from his first kiss with Luna when he found himself being thoroughly kissed by his other best friend.

"Damn" he thought, "so that's what they mean when they talk about toe curling kisses. This is...is..."

Hermione finished kissing Harry and smirked at the sight of him. He looked utterly utterly gobsmacked. "Hmm, looks like I managed to scramble his brains quite nicely" she thought happily. "Luna was absolutely right about every single thing. I'm never going to doubt her again" she thought. "That kiss was absolutely wonderful. An incredibly perfect first kiss."

"Uhhh, what was that? I mean...you...and Luna and you...both of you...what just happened?" mumbled Harry.

Both girls pinked up a bit. "We can talk about that later" said Luna. "Thank you for the dance Harry, I had a wonderful time."

"Uhh sure. Not a prob... I mean I had a great time as well. Thanks for coming with me" said Harry.

"Goodnight Harry" chorused the girls as they activated their portkeys home and vanished in the blink of an eye.

An utterly befuddled yet incredibly happy Harry triggered his own portkey. Seconds later he was collapsing on his bed with the widest goofiest grin upon his face. He would figure out the girls later. For now he was just going to go with the flow and do whatever they wanted. Especially if they wanted to kiss him again. Yep, that was an excellent idea. If they both wanted to kiss him he was going to kiss them right back. No point in worrying about it at all. Just enjoy the kisses and hope that they planned on doing it again. Soon. And often. He should call them tomorrow morning and take them out somewhere. Maybe for a movie or maybe something in Diagon Alley. Yes, that sounded like a great plan.

**~o00o~**

An ecstatic Ludo Bagman stood surrounded by cheering Hogwarts students as he watched Hermione Granger get presented with the Triwizard Cup. He happily fingered the betting slips in his pocket. His mostly sentimental decision to bet upon his old alma mater had paid off very well indeed. This win would totally offset his losses during the last World Cup. Finally he would be able to get the goblins off his back. Life was very good indeed.

"Mr. Bagman? Xenophilius Lovegood from The Quibbler. Could I get a statement from you?" asked Luna's father who had agreed to cover the tournament mostly to keep his only daughter happy.

"Of course, of course Mr. Lovegood, I'm a big fan of the Quibbler by the way, absolutely love your gardening column" beamed Bagman. "Let me see, first off let me say that this was an incredibly close contest and I think that each school can be very proud of their competing students. We've been privileged to see some incredible displays of skill in all the contests so far. Cedric Diggory and Fred and George Weasley of Hogwarts displayed a wonderful proficiency with potions when they won the Potions event. Miss Delacour of Beauxbatons who won the Charms event showed an incomparable mastery of charms and Victor Krum's self transfiguration into a shark very clearly showed that he absolutely deserved to win the Transfiguration event. The Quidditch matches were incredibly close even though Durmstrang won both its matches, mostly thanks to the indisputable talents of Mr. Krum as a seeker. Hogwarts and Beauxbatons can still be very proud of how well their players acquitted themselves. Players like Harry Potter and Neville Longbottom racked up quite the number of goals making sure that even though Durmstrang won they did not do so by too wide a margin. The Hogwarts and Beauxbatons teams must be commended as it is not easy to compete against a player of Mr. Krum's calibre. Thanks to him Durmstrang was leading on points when we came to the final event, that is of course the Academic Quiz. I must say the quiz event was most surprising. Who could have expected Miss Granger and Miss Lovegood, two fourth-year students to so be so very knowledgeable? Not only did they win the Quiz event but they managed to do so with a wide enough point margin that they have won the Triwizard Cup for Hogwarts."

Bagman looked at the stage where a beaming Luna and Hermione were lifting the cup high into the air together before being lifted up into the air themselves on the shoulders of cheering Hogwarts students..

"Those two girls truly deserve to be called Triwizard champions. An absolutely brilliant performance from both of them" said Bagman as the judges called the other teams onto the stage to get their prizes. It had been decided that the winning team for each event would get a thousand galleons and Cedric Diggory, Fred and George Weasley were even now being presented with bags of gold by Nicholas Flamel. Victor Krum would be making the most as not only was he getting a thousand galleons for the Transfiguration event but he would also be getting a share of the thousand galleons awarded to the Durmstrang Quidditch team. He was currently accepting his prize from the judges along with a beaming Ivana Humparoff, who had succeeded Igor Karkaroff as Headmistress after his tragic disappearance two years ago.

"Finally I would like to say that with the success and popularity of this tournament, I fully expect that the Triwizard Tournament is back for good. I believe that we shall most definitely be scheduling another Tournament in four years time" announced Bagman.

**~o00o~**


	25. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25.**

* * *

**~oo00oo~**

The early morning sun was shining brightly upon a sleepy castle in Scotland. It was the end of the school year and most of the castle's inhabitants were still asleep. Not one of the seventh year students were awake, as they had all been up most of the night celebrating the end of their NEWT's. In the hospital wing Madam Pomfrey was busy checking on her stores of Hangover potions. She expected that a veritable flood of students would be turning up in a few hours with aching heads. It was the same every year, she thought. No matter that it was against the rules, every single seventh year class still managed to sneak vast amounts of alcohol into the school for their graduation parties. Oh well, she thought, as she quietly snickered to herself, at least she had managed to procure the one hangover potion that was guaranteed to be as foul tasting as possible. There were several other potions available that tasted far better, but then the little hooligans would never learn their lesson that way. Not to mention that seeing their horrified faces as they struggled to swallow their medicine was excellent entertainment.

High in one of the towers the sun rays shone through a window and illuminated a bed. This bed was not in one of the usual student dorms. No, this bed was in the suite that was given to the school's head boy, one of the many privileges of his position. Currently not much could be seen of the beds occupant as there were several blankets completely covering what seemed to be a rather large oddly shaped mound. Just then a paper air-plane swooped in rather gracefully through an air vent, circled the bed briefly before starting to dive bomb the blankets near the head of the bed. A beautiful snowy owl that was sitting on a perch near the window glared balefully at the paper air plane. It did not approve at all of her human getting any sort of communication that was not sent through her. She briefly considered shredding the offending object but then reconsidered. Her human had not been very happy the last time she did that and it was rather early to be going to all that effort in any case. She would just have to have her human make it up to her later, she thought as she settled back down to sleep.

The plane had bounced off the blankets several times before an arm snaked out from underneath them and snagged it out of the air. With an annoyed grunt a head with a rather astonishing case of bed hair popped out of the blankets and proceeded to unfold the plane and read the short note it contained. The messy haired boy fell back onto his pillows with a irritated expression upon his face before carefully extricating himself from under his blankets. He seemed to be making a effort to move very carefully and quietly as he hopped out of bed and padded on bare feet into his bathroom. A quick shave and shower later he moved silently back into his bedroom and proceeded to put on his clothes. Just as he had finished tying his shoelaces, a voice spoke up from behind him.

"What are you doing out of bed? You were all nice and warm and snuggly and now I'm getting cold."

The boy turned around and smiled at the sight of the girl peeking out from under the covers. He bent down and planted a kiss on her.

"Sorry Love, I did try not to wake you. I just got a message from the headmaster. He said that something's come up and needs to see me. Guess you'll just have to make do and snuggle up to Hermione till I get back" said Harry.

"Humphhh… She's not as warm as you. Why don't you get back in bed for an hour or two and see the Headmaster later?" complained Luna.

"He did say it was urgent" explained Harry. He wasn't happy about getting out of bed either; he had planned on having a leisurely lie in for most of the morning.

"Unnhhhh, why is everyone awake?" grumbled another voice. "Keep it down will you... And get me some coffee."

"I'll tell Dobby to bring up a pot" said Harry, wondering whether he should just get back into bed again. Surely nothing that the headmaster wanted could trump cuddling with his two girlfriends.

"Yeah, tell him to get two pots" mumbled Hermione as she fell asleep again.

Harry left his bedroom and entered his sitting room. He grinned at the sight of the room which was currently in a state of total disarray. While the private after-party in his bedroom had been utterly… utterly… incredibly fantastic, the party before that had been one for the books as well. He smiled as he remembered the events of the night before. Who would ever have guessed that Pansy Parkinson would be such a fun drunk? He would never forget the sight of her dancing on the tables as she belched out the alphabet. Then of course Daphne Greengrass had decided to one up her and belched out nearly the complete set of Ancient Futharc runes. He grinned as he saw Neville was still passed out on his couch with a drooling Hannah Abbott curled up on top of him. Yep, that had been one hell of a party. He called Dobby to him and asked him to get coffee for the girls. He also told him to keep some ready for Neville when he woke up. Dobby of course, looked absolutely ecstatic when he saw the state of the rooms. The little elf loved to clean and a big mess seemed to excite him like nothing else.

**~oo00oo~**

He was nearly skipping as he made his way to the Headmaster's office. He was finding it extremely hard to stop grinning from ear to ear. Oddly enough he wasn't even slightly hung over. Instead, he felt extraordinarily well and extremely happy to boot. He walked past the gargoyle, up the staircase and into the Headmaster's office where he found two men waiting for him.

"Uncle Frank" exclaimed Harry happily as he gave Neville's father a hug.

"Hey Harry" said Frank Longbottom. "How have you been? We've hardly seen you at all this year, your Aunt is quite cross about that."

"Sorry about that Uncle Frank, but you know how it is with the NEWT's. I've just been very busy."

"Yes, yes I know, but now that NEWT's are over you must come and stay with us for a bit. It's been much too long since you came over. Oh, and before I forget, congratulations on winning the Quidditch Cup."

"Thank, couldn't have done it without Neville of course. He's been absolutely awesome as a Keeper" said Harry.

"Well, he is a Longbottom" grinned Frank Longbottom. "I also heard from Griselda that your NEWT project was absolutely amazing."

"She told me that the only reason she's not handing him his mastery right away was that she wanted to see what he comes up for a Masters Project" said Professor Quirrell who had been quietly sitting behind his desk the entire time.

"So, what was it? She just told me that I had to see it for myself" said Frank.

"Have you ever used a communication mirror Uncle Frank?" asked Harry.

"Of course" said Frank Longbottom. "Don't have much use for one though; they're a pain to carry around."

"Yeah, that's one of the reason's they're not to popular. As you know, they're quite expensive as they have to be enchanted by hand. Plus you can't make them too small as you need to draw 256 runes on the back of the mirror in order to enchant them and if you use a shrinking charm the picture isn't as clear and it also reduces the life of the mirror. Then there's the fact that they only work in pairs, so if you have five people you need to keep in touch with, then you need to carry five mirrors, which is totally impractical. So for my NEWT project, I wanted to create a method of making them more convenient to use. I wanted something like a cell phone, you know" said Harry.

"I take it, you figured out how to do it then" said Frank Longbottom.

"Yep, the first step was to figure out how to make them able to connect to more than mirror. That was easy. Instead of calling directly from one mirror to another, we use four mirrors. Two of the mirrors will be in one location. Then, say I need to call you - instead of calling you directly. I call the twin of my mirror, then if you move that mirror in front of the twin of your mirror which then calls you, then we can still talk to each other even though we don't have the actual pairs of each others mirrors. Do you see?" asked Harry.

"I think I get it, so that means you'll be able to call anyone who keeps their paired mirror in the same place. So if Professor Quirrell also has a mirror there then you can call both of us. That's very clever" said Frank Longbottom.

"Yes, but then after a while you run into the space problem. There are only so many mirrors you can keep close enough that they can connect to each other. So I had to figure out a way to make smaller mirrors. The main problem there of course is that when you're etching runes by hand you can only make them so small. Even an exceptionally talented wizard can't draw the runes small enough for what we need" said Harry.

"And shrinking charms don't work you said" frowned Frank Longbottom.

"Nope, so I looked to the non-magical world. They have loads of equipment and methods for manufacturing really tiny things. They have these things called Integrated Circuits which are basically these tiny chips on which circuits are etched. Dad managed to track down some equipment that was about to junked, so we got it for free, and I managed to figure out how to get it to etch runes instead of circuits. Using that I managed to fit the runes into ... well they fit into an area that's smaller than a pin head" said Harry.

"Really? That small?" said a surprised Frank Longbottom.

"Yeah, so now not only can I create really small mirrors. I can also churn them out in the thousands at a fraction of the cost. We can fit thousands of mirrors into a space that's no bigger than a school trunk and all these mirrors can connect to each other and through them to their twins - which will be bigger of course. All you need is a few spells to make them connect to the mirror that's a twin of the mirror belonging to the person you need to speak to and there you go. Sirius and I have already set up a company to market these. We're going to start selling them next autumn."

"The examiners were most impressed" said Professor Quirrell. "While the final scores are not in yet, I feel confident that Harry scored the highest from all the students this year. Well, Miss Granger is likely to come close and of course your son's project which dealt with the uses of the Mimbulus Mimbletonia was also very highly received."

"That's good to hear. Well, I guess we should get to the reason I'm here today" said an uncomfortable looking Frank Longbottom.

"Oh, I'd hoped that this was just a social call" said Harry.

"No... I had some news to give you. I'm not quite sure how to tell you this. I did ask Sirius to come but he said he's knee deep in nappies..."

"Yep, the twins do keep him hopping" said Harry with a big grin, thinking of the two adorable twin girls that Sirius was the father of, and he was the godfather to.

"Anyway, he said that you'd be able to handle it. I thought of calling your Dad, but the Ministry would never approve me discussing this with someone who's not a wizard, even if he is your guardian, so..." rambled Mr. Longbottom.

"Why don't you start at the beginning Mr. Longbottom" said Professor Quirrell rather gently.

"Yes, yes you're right. This all started a few days ago Harry, Dumbledore was moved to the Azkaban infirmary. I don't know if you know this but due to his attempted escape during his trial he's been in the ultra high security wing at Azkaban. As such, he's never been allowed visitors at all. Even his meals are delivered by dementors so he's been unable to talk to anyone since he was sent there. Anyway, the monitors on his cell showed that he was ill. Nothing too serious - Just a mild case of pneumonia, so he was moved to the infirmary for treatment."

"Don't tell me he escaped" asked a panicked Harry.

"No, no he's still safely locked up. No, what happened is - he managed to convince the healer to carry a message from him to the Ministry. That message has put the ministry in a bit of an uproar and the Minister has asked me to head up a task force looking into Dumbledore's allegations."

"Let me guess. They involve me in some way?" asked Harry.

"Yes, now we've discussed the prophecy that Trelawney made before you were born, so you know what I'm talking about" said Frank Longbottom.

"That old piece of drivel. I thought we agreed that it was all rubbish" said Harry.

"Yes, well those of us who knew about the prophecy assumed that it was fulfilled the night that Voldemort attacked your house at Godric's Hollow and was killed. However Dumbledore claims that Voldemort is not dead, something about him being a malevolent spirit of some sort, and that the prophecy still has to come to pass. According to him, any day now Voldemort is bound to resurrect himself. Obviously given the source of the news, we are not just going to believe it but the ministry has to investigate if there is the slightest chance that he is correct" explained Frank Longbottom.

"Huh... So why does he believe that the prophecy has not already been fulfilled. After all, it's been what? Sixteen years and change since that night. You'd think that someone would have noticed Voldemort's ghost wandering about" asked Quirrell.

"He claims that according to the prophecy, Voldemort had to mark you as his equal first and that vanquishing him would have to be a separate event. According to him, even though Voldemort was killed that night, he wasn't completely vanquished, and that was only the incident where you were marked" said Frank.

""Let me guess. He claimed that my scar is the mark in question?" said Harry.

"Yes, yes he did" said Frank.

"Okay, first of all that's a very literal interpretation of the prophecy. If you think about it, the line says he would mark me as his equal. There's nothing about the mark being a physical scar. How does a scar mark one as an equal anyway? I think that the minute he decided that I was the threat, and not Neville, that was the moment he marked me as his equal. After all, I couldn't be a threat to him if I wasn't at least equal in power to him right?" asked Harry.

"Yes, I believe that makes a certain amount of sense" interjected Quirrell. "However, what about the line about the power you will have that the Dark Lord knows not. At the time of the incident you were barely a year old. You would not have any power at that time."

"You know what I've always believed Professor. I believe I've mentioned it to you as well Uncle Frank that I don't really think I had anything to do with Voldemort's defeat. I've always thought that my parents had done something. Some sort of protection spell or ritual that saved me from Voldemort" said Harry.

"How does that qualify as a power the Dark Lord knows not?" asked Frank Longbottom.

"From what little I've learned of Voldemort's history, I know that he never knew his parents at all. His mother died shortly after he was born and he grew up in an orphanage. Right?" said Harry. He looked at Quirrell with a sympathetic eye. He hoped that the Professor was not saddened at the reminder of his parents.

"Yes... Do you mean to say that your parents..." asked Frank Longbottom.

"They were, I believe, the power that Voldemort never knew. Even though I don't really remember them, I was more than a year old when they passed away. I think that qualifies as knowing them much more than Voldemort ever knew either of his parents" said Harry.

"Yes. It would. I think I should be able to sell that to the Ministry" said Frank Longbottom. "That would certainly mean that we no longer have to worry about the prophecy."

"You know, it occurs to me... Dumbledore might simply be trying to resurrect his rabid lion" mused Harry.

"Rabid Lion?" asked a puzzled Frank Longbottom.

"Oh, haven't I mentioned this theory to you before?" asked Harry. "It's based on something I read once, in a fiction book. One of the characters was explaining how he would get people to start following him. He said that the best way is to loose a rabid lion in the streets. And once everyone is absolutely terrified and panicking you simply announce that you will deal with it. Then you kill it and order them to hang the carcass up where everyone can see it. Before they have time to think you give them another order and it will be obeyed. If you continue to give orders, they will continue to obey, for you will be the one who saved them, and who would be better to lead? Do you see where I'm going with this?" *

"I'm not quite sure" said a bemused Frank Longbottom.

"Dumbledore was once the most highly respected and revered wizard in all of Britain. Why? Because he defeated Grindlewald. The problem is that Albus Dumbledore and Gellert Grindlewald were once the best of friends. Rita Skeeter's biography of Dumbledore laid out all the evidence about the relationship between the two of them. How do we know that Dumbledore was not the one to manipulate Grindlewald into being a Dark Lord? Especially if you add in the fact that Dumbledore was also the teacher from Hogwarts that was sent to Tom Riddle to let him know that he was a wizard. Think about it, Voldemort was brought into our world by none other than Dumbledore. Wouldn't that have made Tom Riddle look up to him? The two most feared Dark Wizards of the last century, and both of them were close to Dumbledore at one point. Coincidence? I think not" explained Harry.

"I don't know Harry. That seems a bit far fetched. But in any case, Fudge already thinks that Dumbledore is just trying to come up with an excuse for the ministry to commute his sentence. Since there has been absolutely no evidence of any Death Eater activity after the Hogwarts attack in '91, I don't think Dumbledore is going to get very far anyway. I think we can safely wrap up this investigation. I'll let everyone know that the prophecy was definitely fulfilled back when you were a year old" said Frank Longbottom.

"Okay Uncle Frank. That's good to hear" said Harry.

After a few more minutes of small talk - Frank had some news about Draco Malfory. It seemed that Draco had been accepted into Auror training. There had been some reservations about accepting the son of a Death Eater, so they had carried out a veritaserum interrogation as part of the interview process. The aurors interviewing Draco had been quite surprised to hear that Draco absolutely detested Death Eaters. It seemed he blamed them for his father's death and wanted nothing more than to become an Auror and spend his life catching dark wizards - Frank Longbottom flooed back to the Ministry and Harry was left alone with Quirrell.

"Okay then Professor, I guess I'll be off as well" said Harry, he was impatient to get back to the girls. With a bit of luck he might still be able to get in some cuddling time.

"Wait a minute Harry, I'd like to talk about a few things with you" said Quirrell.

Harry sat back down. He hoped that whatever the Professor wanted to talk about would not take too long.

"What is it? Are you worried about Dumbledore?" asked Harry.

"Hardly" said Quirrell. "He's safely out of the way. No, I just wanted to talk to you about your future plans. Are you still going to be enrolling in a Non-magical university?"

"Yes, Hermione, Luna and I have all gotten into the same university. So we're all going to be together."

"That's nice" said Quirrell in a distracted tone. "I must say, adding those Non-Magical subjects to the curriculum certainly paid off. Did you know that over sixty percent of our graduates have been accepted into Universities? That's the highest number ever. Previously, before we started the extra classes, only a few first gens used to bother with going to University after Hogwarts. It is good to see more of our students seeking higher education."

"All part of the plan to drag the wizarding world into the modern age. And I believe this year also has the highest number of first gens being offered positions in the Ministry as well.

"Yes," said Quirrell. "However, it is vitally important that you continue to have a strong presence in the magical world as well."

"I did accept the position as a reserve chaser with Puddlemere" said Harry. "They said they'd be willing to work around my classes. They offered spots to Hermione and Luna as well but Hermione wanted to concentrate on University and Luna said that she's played enough Quidditch and wants to find another hobby."

"Yes, that is perfect for keeping you in the public eye" said Quirrell.

"Why would it be so important that I stay in the public eye?" asked Harry.

Quirrell smirked at Harry. "It's all part of the plan, my dear Harry. All part of the plan."

"No, No it isn't. The plan was to slowly make changes in the wizarding world. Make it more modern and less estranged from the main stream. Nothing in it requires me to remain in the public eye."

"Doesn't it?" asked Quirrell. "While these slow changes are all well and good - At some point we will need to make a major overhaul of the Government. Most wizards live a very long time indeed. That means the current bunch of politicians is likely to be in power for a very long time. Slow change is good, but at some point we will need more power in the Government. That's where you come in."

"Hey, hey, hey. Hold on just a second. I never agreed to entering politics" complained Harry.

"Come now. It is inevitable. You once told me that you thought I could be elected Minister of Magic. Since I am never going to enter politics and Black is also never going to make a good candidate..."

"Sirius could do it. He'd make one hell of a Minister" interrupted Harry.

"Too many skeletons in his family closets, I'm afraid. There will always be people hesitant to vote for him simply because his last name is Black. No, I'm afraid you are the only option we have" smirked Quirrell.

"But I don't want to work at the Ministry" whined Harry. "It's boring."

"Now, Now. It's not like I'm asking you to start working there tomorrow. No, for now your current plans will continue. Go to University, play Quidditch. Just make sure you keep your nose clean. I will not have you doing anything to jeopardise your future career. So, no acting like Ron Weasley for example."

"Ron? What does Ron have to do with anything?"

"He's just an example of how you do not want to behave" said Quirrell, waving his arms dismissively. "He's been arrested five times for public drunkenness ever since he left Hogwarts after his OWL's. Anyway, his mother has finally put her foot down and refused to support him any longer unless he comes back and gets some NEWT's. He should be rejoining next year's Sixth year class, but forget about him. I was simply using him as an example of the kind of reputation you do not need. So while parties like the one you had last night can be excused as you blowing of some steam after your NEWT's, you cannot make them a regular affair."

"Course not" said Harry, a bit insulted that anyone could assume that he would act anything like Ron.

"So, there is only one small change to your immediate plans. You may have this summer off. You have just finished your NEWT's after all. Next summer however, you will be interning at our embassy in France. Sirius and I will be arranging several intern-ships like this over the next few years. By the time you are... hmmm... Say around the time you're thirty - thirty-five or so, you should be ready by then. That would be a good time for you to run for election for Minister of Magic."

"But ... But ..." sputtered Harry.

"Harry, you promised me that we would change the Magical World. I fully plan on holding you to that promise" said Quirrell in a steely voice.

Harry sat and thought furiously for a few minutes. Perhaps Quirrell was right. Sirius had also been joking for years about how he would one day be minister. He should have realised that it wasn't really a joke. Perhaps, they were both right. Perhaps he should give it a try. Perhaps being Minister, might actually be fun.

"You're right" he said. "I did promise that. And you're right; nothing in this plan really changes things for now. I can still go to University. I can still start my cell phone business. I can still play Quidditch. All of that will only help in the long run."

"Exactly" said Quirrell. "I'm glad we could agree."

"Would be nice if Luna and Hermione could also come to France though" said Harry.

"I will make sure that we arrange internships for them as well. I will leave it up to you to convince them to accept the offers" said Quirrell.

"Okay" said Harry. "If that's all, I think I'll head back to my room now."

"Of course, Mr. Potter. Do give my regards to your lovely friends" said Quirrell. Harry's rather unconventional relationship was an endless source of amusement for Quirrell.

Harry rushed back to his room. He hoped that the girls were still there. Nothing like a little cuddling to take your mind of the fact that a former dark lord seemed hell bent on making you Minister of Magic one day.

**~oo00oo~**

Albus Dumbledore waited patiently in his cell. As prison cells went, it wasn't too bad. You could even say it was reasonably comfortable. His occulumency kept the worst affects of the Dementors at bay and he had finally managed to get word out to the ministry. Soon they would be removing him from this place. Soon he would be back where he belonged. He smirked to himself. It would take him time to get back his previous position but he was absolutely certain that he would eventually recover everything that had been taken from him. Then he would make them pay. He would make them all pay. He chuckled darkly to himself as he imagined the tortures he would inflict upon all those involved in his trial and sentencing. He would not do anything himself of course, no matter how satisfying it would be. No, he had always worked through cat's paws and he would not change his methods. All he had to do was wait for Voldemort to make his inevitable return. Then he would use him to wreak his revenge. Yes, yes he would. He would get free of this place, then he would let Voldemort torture and kill those who had sent him here. Then he would manipulate Harry Potter into facing Voldemort. He could see it now, it would be an epic battle. Harry would face Voldemort and die. Voldemort would surely be weakened after that and he, Albus Dumbledore should be able to easily defeat him. After that it would be easy to take his rightful position as the ruler of the Magical World. He smiled to himself as he lost himself in fantasies of his inevitable triumph.

Unfortunately for him, the Ministry had already chosen to disregard his message. He would wait a long time but the Dark Lord Voldemort would never be seen again.

**The End.**

* * *

*The rabid lion story is from the Wheel of Time series.

Thank to all my readers for sticking with the story to the end. I'd especially like to thank all of you that took the time to review. I doubt that I would have managed to complete this story without all the encouragement I received. Those of you that have enjoyed this story might want to keep an eye out for my next story, which I should be releasing soon.

Harry Potter belongs to JKR of course.

**~oo00oo~**


	26. Chapter 26 :Epilogue

A/N: I did think I was finished with this story, but then I got the urge to write just a little bit more.

* * *

**Epilogue: Whatever happened to Snape?**

**~oo00oo~**

**Twelve Years Later**

A manacled and chained Severus Snape was led into the brightly lit room. The years in Azkaban had not been kind to the former Professor. His once jet black hair was now completely white and his face was haggard and drawn. He blinked slowly around the room while his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness. The room was empty except for a single desk behind which sat a woman. She seemed to be talking into a small device she held in her hand but Snape could not hear a word. He assumed she had some sort of silencing charm up. The woman gestured to the guards who had brought him in, pointing first to him and then at the chair placed before her desk. The two guards who had brought him into the cell rather unceremoniously dumped him into it before leaving the room.

Snape stared at the woman in front of him who was even now continuing to talk into her small hand held device. He wondered what it could be. After a few minutes the woman seemed to finish her conversation and she seemed to bend the device in half.

"Sorry about keeping you waiting Mr. Snape" she said in an apologetic tone.

Snape started. She had not used a wand to dispel her silencing charm and yet he could hear her. Was she capable of wandless magic? He asked her as much.

"Wandless magic?" she exclaimed in surprise. "Oh, you wouldn't know about a PComm, would you? I guess they came out after you were incarcerated. No, that's just one of the features of the PComm. It automatically sets up a silencing charm if you have privacy mode enabled."

"Oh" said a confused Snape. What on earth was a P... whatever she said. Oh well, he thought, it probably wasn't very important.

"Yes, Well. Anyway, let me just introduce myself. My name is Marietta Edgecombe and I have been appointed to be your vocational counsellor."

"Vocational counsellor?" asked a surprised Severus Snape.

"Yes, as you will soon be completing your sentence here at Azkaban, the Ministry of Magic wishes to help you to once again become a productive member of our society. As per the Bones Act of 1997, all convicts are to be appointed a vocational and guidance counsellor and provided any necessary training prior to their release. So, like I said earlier, I am your counsellor. It is my job to help you get a job once you have completed your sentence and fully discharged your debt to society."

"I see" said Snape.

"Now, I know that you used to be a professor at Hogwarts. Unfortunately, as someone with a prison record, you cannot be hired at any job which involves children. This means that we must explore other careers for you" explained Marietta.

"I am also a Potions Master madam. As such I can easily support myself by brewing and selling potions" said Snape with a hint of a sneer in his voice.

"Oh no, that would be quite impossible Mr. Snape. You see, the DFP has made it quite illegal to sell home-brewed potions. It's been that way for quite a few years now."

"Illegal! To sell potions..." sputtered Snape. "Why? Why would they do such a thing? And who or what is the DFP?"

"That would be the Department of Food and Potions. They're a department of the Ministry that are responsible for the licensing and sale of all Potions within Great Britain" said Marietta.

"But... Why would they make it illegal to sell Potions? What about medicinal potions? How do the healers heal people without Potions?" asked Snape.

"Oh no, Mr. Snape. It is not illegal to sell Potions. It is only illegal to sell Home-brewed Potions" said Marietta, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"I'm afraid, I don't understand. I am a Potions Master, as such I have always been able to sell the Potions I create" said Snape.

"Hmm, you have been quite out of touch, haven't you? I guess I'll have to explain. It's a bit of a long story, so bear with me."

"Very well" said Snape.

"I guess it started quite a few years ago. We had a major crisis on our hands. There was suddenly a severe shortage of Potions Masters. This meant of course that there was a severe shortage of Potions. People tried to fill in the gaps of course. But this meant that the market was suddenly flooded with potions of a very dubious quality. So the Ministry created the DFP to regulate the sale of all potions" said Marietta.

"Why was there a shortage of Potions Masters?" asked Snape.

"Hmmm, well I don't know quite how to say this, seeing as you were at Hogwarts at the time in question" said Marietta. She looked at the man in front of her for a long moment before continuing. "The Ministry started an enquiry into the matter of course. They eventually concluded that the quality of Potions instruction at Hogwarts during the period from 1981 to 1991 was severely lacking. They found that there was a clear statistical link between the people educated during that time and the drop in the number of people pursuing masteries in potions. Of course no one really noticed it at the time, since these things are never obvious while they are happening. No, but go forward a few years and you find that the older Potions Masters would retire and there was no one to replace them. Hence by the time that anyone noticed, there was nothing really that they could do. I mean, yes, after 1991, education in Potions vastly improved, but it was only the students who were in First, Second, and Third Year at the time that would eventually start replenishing the ranks of Potions Masters. Most of the older students seemed to be only interested in Potions for getting their NEWTs and not enough to pursue it for a career."

Snape looked at the woman in utter and complete disbelief. He hadn't been that bad of a teacher surely. I mean, yes he had hated teaching, and the dunderheads he would get in his classes would drive him apoplectic with rage at times. But... But...

"Anyway, a company called PPP was created. They completely automated and industrialised the creation of Potions. They proved that they could manufacture and sell potions, not only at a fraction of a cost of home-brewed ones, but also of a much higher quality. After a while, the Ministry realised that PPP always provided potions of a consistently excellent quality. Oh, people were still selling their home-brewed potions, but the quality of those could fluctuate wildly. After all, you as a Potions Master, must know that even a single extra stir, or changing the direction of a stir from clockwise to anticlockwise can change the eventual quality of a Potion. Plus, home-brews could never match PPP on price so people tried cutting corners. Going for cheaper ingredients. Obviously this drove the quality of those potions even further down. Eventually there were a few cases where people got ill after being given home-brewed potions. After that - well, what was the ministry to do? They simply outlawed the selling of all home-brewed potions as the safest solution" said Marietta.

"But then? What do Potions Masters do now?" asked Snape.

"Most of the good ones work for PPP in some capacity or the other. Some in research, some in production etcetera."

"I see. Then, why don't you get me a job with them, this PPP?" asked Snape.

Marietta grimaced. "Oh dear. I think that would be quite impossible Mr. Snape. No, quite impossible I'm afraid" she said, shaking her head.

"Why? Before my incarceration I was considered one of the top Potions Masters in the country. Any company should be happy to hire me."

"You were also convicted as an accessory in the deaths of James and Lily Potter. And since PPP stands for Potter's Perfect Potions, I don't really think there would be much point in you applying for a job there" explained Marietta.

"Potter... Potter's Perfect Potions..." mumbled a shocked Snape.

"So, since it would be quite impossible for you to work as a Potions Master, we must look for an alternative career for you" said Marietta brightly.

"Potter..." mumbled Snape, his eye starting to twitch rather violently.

"Have you ever considered being a cook?" she asked. "It utilises many of the same skills required in potions after all."

"POTTER" screamed Snape as he leapt out of chair and jumped towards Marietta with his manacled hands outstretched in front of him as if he meant to throttle her. He barely had time to have a glimpse of her startled expression before he was bouncing off a shield that automatically snapped across the entire room, neatly separating him from her. Seconds later the guards rushed into the room and he was being dragged back to his cell.

It took quite a while and several cups of tea for Marietta to calm down. She knew that she had never been in any danger, the safety precautions were very thorough after all, but she had still been quite shocked by the sudden attack. She flipped open her PComm.

"Record Memo" she said. "Inmate Severus Snape does not seem to be in his right mind. As such it is my recommendation that further Vocational guidance is useless at this time. He will need to be treated at St. Mungo's Mental Health Centre before we can explore any career options for him. As this can only be done after his release from Azkaban, we will need to postpone any further sessions until after he is treated and completely cured."

She frowned at the sight of the stylised 'P' logo embossed into her PComm, "Note that he seems to have been triggered into an act of violence by the word - Potter. Since the Potter brand is visible everywhere in the magical world, impossible to escape really, what with PPP, Potter Communicators, the fact that Witch Weekly seems to have Harry Potter and his two girlfriends on the cover every other week, it would be quite impossible to release him without treatment for this condition."

She sighed - cases like this always depressed her. Especially as she remembered him from her early years at Hogwarts. He had seemed so competent then, so skilled at potions - even though he couldn't teach them at all. It was quite sad to see him reduced to this state. "Oh well" she thought. Perhaps the next case would be better.

**~oo00oo~**

**The End.  
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A/N: Check out my new story - Harry Potter and the Power of Paranoia.**  
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